


universe 48

by wearethewitches



Series: the multiverse of my framing [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Agent Carter References, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist Steve Rogers, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Awesome Melinda May, BAMF Clint Barton, Blood and Torture, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Feels, Deaf Clint Barton, Disabled Character, Domestic, F/F, F/M, Gen, Human Dummy (Iron Man movies), Hurt Tony Stark, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Grant Ward, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Infinity Gems, Inhuman Skye | Daisy Johnson, Inhumans (Marvel), Introspection, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Kid Skye | Daisy Johnson, Kidnapping, Loki Angst, Loki's Kids, M/M, Melinda May Feels, Multi, Nick Fury Knows All, Nick Fury is a Good Bro, Odin's A+ Parenting, Parent Melinda May, Parent Tony Stark, Parenthood, Phil Coulson & Melinda May are Skye's Parents, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury Friendship, Phil Coulson is Skye's Father, Polyamory, Protective Melinda May, Protective Tony Stark, Queer Themes, Red Room (Marvel), Rescue Missions, SHIELD 616 | The Bus, Skye | Daisy Johnson Needs a Hug, Sneaky Nick Fury, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, The Obelisk (Marvel), Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, don't worry he gets shot in the head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12377946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Wherein, Clint adopts an orphan, Tony Stark finds an Infinity Stone (and a few other things), Fury Cares™ and various characters have too many parents.





	1. flowers.1.1

“The baby bird is acquired,” Clint says as the young girl gets into the car, strapping in. Shutting the door, Clint makes his way around to the drivers side, glancing around for anything suspicious. “No hostiles in sight.”

“ _Good. Get the girl back to base, Agent,_ ” Sitwell orders him. “ _Try not to frighten her too much._ ”

Clint snorts, “I’m great with kids. Barton, out.” Clicking his comm off, Clint gets into the truck, glancing back at the five year old now in his custody until further notice. “How’re you doing there, sweetheart?”

“Okay. Where are we going?” she asks, looking at him through the long cut of her fringe.

“Somewhere safe,” Clint says, backing up out of the parking lot and making his way towards the expressway. At some point, he turns on the heater, figuring that maybe the little girl might not be used to the cold. “What was your name again?”

“Mary-Sue.”

“Mary-Sue?” Clint raises an eyebrow. “Who named you that?”

“The nuns,” Mary-Sue answers flatly, briefly throwing Clint off-guard. _Wait, what? Sitwell never said this kid was an orphan – I thought she witnessed her mom’s murder. Near-murder._ “Foster-homes aren’t safe. Other kids aren’t always nice.”

“I’m going to call you Mary, if that’s okay. Were they mean to you?” Clint asks, after a pause. When Mary doesn’t answer, Clint thinks up a different question. “Why would you think I’m bringing you to a foster-home? I mean, I get it, if you think you’re being taken back because- because of what happened to your foster-mom, but…” he trails off. Mary fidgets a little and it’s then that Clint notices the red under her nails in the rear-view mirror and the circles in her palms – _is that blood on her arms, too?_ _Shit. Who the fuck was in charge of her before me? I’m going to put in a fucking complaint, man…_

“I’m always moving,” she mutters after a few seconds and suddenly, it resonates with Clint oddly, who starts having flashbacks from the circus. He remembers always working – packing up the tents and practicing his precious five minute act with Barney. Trickshot didn’t care much about their schooling, so long as they could read, write and talk properly. _I’m always moving_.

“I understand that, kid,” Clint says, voice tight. He focuses on driving for a while and maybe half an hour passes, before he notices Mary fidgeting in the back seat. He pulls into the next gas station, unpacking them both from their belts before leading Mary into the diner, just off the side.

It’s a stereotypical highway diner with a creaky door, smelling like grease. Surprisingly, cleaning detergent is another one of the big smells. A dark-skinned waitress leans out of the kitchen door, calling out to them in a familiar Iowa accent.

“Just a minute, honey. Dishwasher just broke and we’re mopping up.”

“Well, that explains the smell,” Clint mutters, before smiling calmly, popping his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. “Bathroom?”

The waitress glances down at Mary, who – despite her silence – is doing the classic _gotta go_ dance, before pointing to the left. “Just over there, honey. Handicap should be open if you don’t want to bring your little girl into the gents.”

“Thanks,” Clint says, before the waitress disappears.

“I can go to the bathroom myself,” Mary whispers.

“Okay, but I’ll be outside the door, in case you need help,” Clint says. They make their way to the handicap bathroom, Clint turning on the light-switch before letting Mary close the door behind her. While he waits, Clint glances up at the diner menu over the bar, wondering if the kid is hungry.

The waitress eventually pops back out. “What can I get you?”

“You got bottled water behind there?”

“Sure – taking away? Costs less, cause you don’t use a glass,” she presumably reaches into the fridge behind the counter, taking out two bottles and putting them up in the bar. “Your girl still inside? They get real independent at that age – I’ve got two, one girl who’s seven and a boy turning three.”

“Mary’s…” Clint blinks. “Crap. How old is she? Five?”

The waitress laughs, “It’s so easy to lose track, ain’t it? I swear, one minute my baby girl could fit so snug in my arms. Now, she’s nearly as tall as me, but to be honest, I’m pretty short. My girl though – she can do all sorts of gymnastics. I’m so proud. Her pop is a proper carnie, y’know.” Clint nods, wondering at the thought of another carnie in Iowa. _For all I know, it’s Barney. That’d be a classic, me meeting him again through his wife._ A glance at her hands shows no ring though. Obviously, however, the waitress has done the same thing, because she motions with a tea-towel to his crossed arms. “No ring,” she notes out loud. “Her momma around?”

Clint grimaces, the picture of the agent’s medical file flicking through his mind. The woman who fostered Mary had been tortured extensively, for reasons unknown. She’s in critical care, hidden away in a private hospital room – apparently Fury holds her in high esteem, so she’s probably got around the clock guards, as well.

“No. She’s not around,” he says, before the door creaks open. Clint looks down at the little girl he’s been charged to take care of. “You wash your hands?”

“Can’t reach.”

Clint sighs. “C’mon, back inside.” Mary slinks out of view and Clint helps her wash her hands, wrapping his arm around her torso and lifting her up to the right height, working the taps and pressing the soap for her. “Good girl,” he says after she finishes, grabbing some paper towels for her to dry her dripping hands. Mary glances up at him through her long bangs, eyes a little wide. Clint repeats himself. “Good girl.”

Mary goes a little red, biting her lip trying to contain a smile as she enthusiastically dries her hands, putting the damp paper towels in the bin. Clint ruffles her hair before they go back out, heading to the bar.

“Want something to eat, chickadee?” Clint questions, getting a happy nod. He picks her up, swinging her onto a tall stool, to her giggles. “There we go,” he murmurs, smiling himself and sitting up beside her. “What do you think about nuggets? Or a burger?”

“Burger.”

“With all the toppings?”

Mary wrinkles her nose, looking up at the menu with narrowed eyes. “No. Cheese and ketchup.”

“Alright then,” the waitress writes it down on her notepad. “Kids burger with cheese and ketchup. You want a pop with that, honey?”

“What’s a pop?”

“A coke,” Clint says. “Small glass, please.”

“We’ve got some plastic kids cups,” the waitress says helpfully. Now they’re closer, Clint can read her sewn name-tag properly, the curly writing having confused him beforehand. _Cassidy._

“Thanks. Can I get the barbeque ribs and fries? And a pop?”

“Sure. I’ll get Jess on it. You in a hurry?”

“Naw,” Clint waves her off before taking out his wallet. Cassidy reads out a rough total from the till and he hands over some bills. “I always forget to pay. Might as well do it now. Keep the change.”

“Thank-you,” Cassidy winks, then goes into the back to give Jess the order. The truth is, half the time it’s Phil paying and the other half of the time, Clint’s eating then getting caught up in murder and SHIELD business.

Mary pokes his arm.

“So where _are_ we going?”

“Somewhere safe,” Clint repeats his earlier statement.

“Safe isn’t safe,” Mary says in a supremely, genuinely wise way for her age. Clint is kind of disturbed, actually. “Where are we going?”

Clint finds himself stumped.

“I can’t tell you,” he says, brow furrowing. “It’s…with what happened and because of where she worked…” _SHIELD, a woman in Level Six Communications fostered you, somehow, without getting called out for it._ “It’s complicated kid. I have to make sure you’re safe. The guys that…”

“Hurt her.”

“That hurt her,” Clint lowers his voice, “are still out there. We don’t know why she was targeted; but in the event that an employee from our organisation is killed, we get their family to safety. You were her foster-kid. It would be _so_ easy for you to go missing, because the adults that look after you in homes usually have other children to care for.”

“Why?”

“Did you see anything? Did you hear what they wanted?” Clint whispers the question, before Cassidy comes back in to serve them their Coca Colas, pouring ice and cold cans into glasses. She even pops in a straw for Mary, who gives a small smile before sipping cheerfully, quiet as a mouse.

“There you go. I’ll bring your order round front soon. Just call if you need something,” Cassidy says, giving Mary a small wave before heading back into the kitchen. Faintly, Clint can hear her talking to Jess, presumably. He looks back to Mary, eyeing her critically before finally asking the question Sitwell said she refused to answer.

“Mary. What happened to Agent Hill?”

* * *

“We were having chicken nuggets.”

_Maria pokes Mary’s nose with a ketchup-covered nugget, making her giggle and reach out to copy her. Mary watches in awe as Maria reaches her tongue up to lick it off._

“Then- then something came through the window and it make the room go white. It hurt my eyes.”

_There’s a sudden crash from the window, something heavy dropping into the sink. Maria immediately grabs Mary, pulling her into her chest, but there’s no explosion – just a bang and everything is so **bright** as Mary screams in fright. Something breaks – a heavy crunching sound, before a door slams. Maria runs and they bash into something, the blue china that had been to Mary’s back during dinner reflecting the light._

“Mommy put me in the china cabinet. When she locked it, they couldn’t get me.”

The blonde agent man reaches over, picking her up and bringing her to sit on his lap. It’s so strange to Mary – yet not. Maria was like this. Maria hugged her tightly and made fun jokes. Maria kept her safe. Maria cried happy tears when Mary asked to call her _mommy_ , after a year together. This man, who hasn’t even told her his name, is much like Maria. He’s not like the Matthews, or Ms Karen. The Matthews had so many rules and smiles that made her tummy flip-flop and Ms Karen was… _cold._ All Mary can remember about Ms Karen was the cold _._

Mary wants to know this blonde agent man’s name, even if having a name would mean she had another person to leave. _I want Mommy._

“They were all dressed up and had guns. Mommy fought them, but they shot her in the legs. They kept punching her face and making electric hurt her. They put a fire on her shoulder. They wanted me.”

“You?”

_The nastiest one, who’s big and scary, comes over to where Mary’s inside the cabinet. He leers at her through the glass before trying to open the door, only for it to stick firm. He frowns, before tugging again. It doesn’t work and when he shakes it again and again, the cabinet doesn’t even move, let alone give._

“Yeah,” Mary whispers, reaching for her coke. The blonde agent man tugs it over, letting her out of his comforting grip to lean forwards. Mary takes a minute to drink, shuddering slightly as she remembers what they did to her Mommy. “My Mommy’s china was in a special cupboard though. It didn’t let them get me. It was locked. They tried to make Mommy open it, but she just set off an alarm instead. She-”

_Maria’s almost face-to-face with Mary, held up by one of the goons in front of the cabinet. The glass has backwards numbers on it, facing towards Maria and she locks eyes with Mary – or tries to, at least. One of her eyes can’t open and her other one has blood from her hairline dripping into it. Everything about the other people there and every way they’ve hurt her Mommy scares Mary, but it’s been hours. She’s long stopped crying._

_“Pegasus, rock-a-bye, Hunan, one, monastery,” Maria says clearly and concisely. The computer in the glass blips, decreeing the passcode wrong. The man holding Maria up slams his fist into her face, before she groans, speaking again. “Pegasus, rock-a-bye, Hunan, eighteen, monastery-” It goes on and on, negative after negative result, each time a different number. Mary starts crying again, because each wrong time, the man hits her again, once bringing her back to the bloody chair and peeling part of her leg skin with a kitchen knife._

_“Don’t look, baby girl, Santa Clause will save you,” Maria slurs, multiple times, confusing everyone._

_The men eventually decide to kill her._

_“We’ll just carry the cabinet out with her in it,” says the one that tried shooting the glass. “One last try, Agent Hill, then you’re dead.”_

_Maria is brought back to the cabinet. She’s silent, trying to draw in enough breath to speak._

_“Pegasus. Rock-a-bye. Hunan. One. Monastery.” She says, the man holding her bringing up his gun upon recognising the same passcode from the first time – but then she says one last word. “Santa.”_

_The cabinet beeps, the screen flickering, pulsing. A timer appears, counting down from a strange number – seventeen seconds. Mary wipes her eyes, confused. Maria chuckles, wincing and grimacing almost immediately afterwards, shutting her eyes and becoming limp in the man’s arms. He sets her down like she’s a box of books – heavily, but close to the ground, an argument breaking out._

“Then what happened?” the blonde agent man questions.

“Santa came,” Mary says. “Santa’s black, y’know.”

“Santa- wait. _Wait._ Santa? Santa Clause – Saint _Nick?_ Holy cow, _Nick Fury rescued you?_ ”

_When the timer runs down to zero, there are a few seconds, before a man in a leather coat steps through the broken backdoor with half a dozen black-suited men, guns firing. Mary shuts her eyes and covers her ears, not looking, trying not to listen to the screams and loud gunshots that will haunt her dreams to come. Eventually, the noise dies down._

_“Clean this up,” a man says. “Get Hill to an ICU, for fucks sake.”_

_“Yes, sir-”_

_“Yes, Director-”_

_“Mary,” he addresses her. She opens her eyes. “My name is Nicholas J. Fury, but you can call me Santa.”_

“I get to call him Santa,” Mary says, before a round lady with her hair hidden under a blue net comes out of the kitchen with Cassidy, placing ribs and a burger in front of them, each with a side of fries.

“There ya go, folks. I’m Jess.”

“Thanks,” the blonde agent man says. “I’m Clint. This is Mary.”

“Mary-Sue Poots,” Mary finishes distantly.

_“I’m going to open this up and take you out. Don’t do a runner and make one of these agents have to catch you.” Santa says, looking at Mary balefully as the other agents pick Maria up, taking her away. When Maria disappears, Mary looks to Santa. It’s then that she notices the eyepatch. She watches as he puts his hand on the glass, which zips a blue light over it before flashing green. There’s a **click** , before he pulls the cabinet door open._

_Santa pulls Mary out of the cabinet, some of the china falling out onto the ground where Maria had been laid. There’s blood everywhere. Santa walks away, to the kitchen exit, pointing at the sofa._

_“Go sit.”_

“Poots?” Cassidy smiles. The blonde agent man – Clint – tilts his head, nodding.

“Yeah. Clinton and Mary-Sue Poots.”

Mary frowns as she picks up her burger, looking up at Clint- Clinton? – strangely. “Do I call you Clint or Clinton?”

Clint chuckles, “Eat your food, kid. Other adults get to call me Clint.”

 _Okay,_ Mary thinks. _I have to call you Clinton, then. Clinton, like the President._ She thinks about Maria, teaching her about _governments_ and how school is important. Mary doesn’t think she can spell _government_ , so maybe that’s why school’s important.

She wants to ask Clinton, but they’re both eating. Clinton is already a third of the way through his ribs and he’s finished his chips. Mary hurries to eat her burger faster, so she doesn’t get hungry later. Mary doesn’t know if Clinton is nice, like Maria – he could be like the Matthews, who always told her to finish eating quicker and whose kids stole her food when they were done, or he could be like Ms Karen who stared at her as she ate, looking at each piece of food going in her mouth like it was dirt.

“Woah,” he pauses suddenly, putting his rib down. “You’re going to make yourself sick. Slow down. We’ve all the time in the world.”

“Okay,” Mary whispers, looking to her food and putting her burger down, grabbing her drink again, staring at the ice inside as she sucks her straw. She picks at her fries, occasionally throwing glances at Clinton. He eats and he chats with the nice lady behind the bar, with the dark skin and bright, green eyes. Mary thinks she’s _so_ pretty and looks away quickly when she glances at Mary, scared at getting caught staring.

Eventually, she finishes her burger, drink and fries. Mary feels sated. She missed lunch with her mommy today, a bit. Her arms itch and Mary feels her shirt tugging and tearing something as she scratches it. Wincing, Mary crosses her arms as she feels her shirt get wet above her elbow, where she’d scratched herself during her time stuck in the china cabinet.

“You cold, kiddo?” Clinton questions, before taking off his black leather jacket, putting it around her shoulders. Mary’s eyes widen before she tugs it around her, sticking her arms through the huge arm holes. The jacket is huge on her, but it has a fluffy inside and it’s toasty warm from Clinton wearing it. Clinton snickers. “Bit big for you, chickadee.”

“Mmmm,” Mary hums, agreeing. She yawns afterwards. Her tummy is perfectly filled and the jacket is warm, making her feel sleepy. She becomes a little more alert when Clinton picks her up, but he just puts her on his hip like her mommy did, checking with the waitress to make sure they’d paid in full before picking up their bottled waters.

“Say bye, chickadee.”

“Bye,” Mary says, looking at the pretty waitress one last time as she smiles and waves at them both, watching her as Clinton walks them out of the diner into the snow. It immediately attracts her attention, the wind blowing cold air in her face, down her neck and up the arm holes of Clinton’s jacket. “It’s _cold_.”

“Can’t do much about it, unless you’re some kind of weather witch,” Clinton says, before unlocking the car and putting her in the backseat, buckling her into her booster seat. Mary’s a little surprised, but very happy to find he leaves his jacket with her. “From here on out, we’re driving through the night. If you need to go to the bathroom, tell me, alright? I’ll stop somewhere.”

“Okay. Can I go to sleep?”

“If you can, sweetheart,” Clinton says, before shutting the door, heading around to the drivers. Once inside, he turns the key in the ignition, rolling out onto the road and turning on the heating. As they head up the highway, Mary notices how he looks at her in the rear-view mirror – but eventually, she forgets, curling up inside his jacket. She falls asleep.

She wakes up screaming.

* * *

_Elsewhere:_

“You know, I did _not_ expect for you to be so damn lazy in covering up after yourself,” Nick says, glaring annoyedly at her. “You’re supposed to be my up-and-coming best agent, May.”

Melinda raises an eyebrow, giving him a pleasant – if confused – smile. “What are you on about?” she questions, unwrapping her hands.

“Mary-Sue Poots. Named by the nuns _you_ gave her to.” Nick watches Melinda’s smile disappear, to be replaced by a horrified expression. “Oh yeah, I know. So does one of my potential future right hands, apparently. Fostered the kid out of the blue, keeping it on the down-low and using her own credentials to manipulate the paper-trail. Wasn’t enough to fix the bullshit you’d left behind from your little seclusion in eighty-eight.”

“What happened?” Melinda demands.

“Mercenaries. Hill’s going to be in hospital for months. The girl’s gone into hiding with an agent that Coulson recruited.” Nick narrows his eyes at Melinda’s flinch, working it out pretty quickly. “You didn’t tell him.”

“I told _no-one,_ let alone my daughter’s own _father_ , that I had a kid,” Melinda hisses, before going over to her bag on a gym bench, packing up quickly and methodically. “Why are you coming here to tell me this personally, _Director?_ ”

“You need to clean up. Only you know your exact route, but if your enemies picked up the trail, it must not be that hard to follow. I’m giving you the next month off. If anyone asks, you’re on a mission. When you come back, know that you won’t be getting that pretty fucking promotion to level seven for at least another year. Dismissed.”

“Sir,” Melinda growls, grabbing her bag and leaving. Nick watches her go, feeling disappointed and guilty, for good reason.

_If Phil Coulson never finds out he’s got a daughter, even if it needs to be kept secret her entire life, I’ll never forgive myself._

* * *

When Mary starts to whimper in her sleep, Clint starts looking on either side of the highway for some form of motel. The next town turns out to be half an hours drive, so he books it. Unfortunately, Mary wakes with _mommy_ on her lips, crying her heart out.

 _There should be a survival kit in the back. Sleeping bags, blankets,_ Clint thinks as he pulls over onto a wide dirt-track dusted lightly with snow. Parking out of the way, off to the side, he climbs into the back, shushing her gently as he unbuckles her. Mary kicks a little, arms flailing, but Clint works patiently, staying calm. He knows nightmares – nightmares are special friends of his. His worst one is Barney punching him, beating him black and blue on Trickshot’s order. He can’t imagine what Mary saw when Agent Hill was tortured.

“I’m here, I’m going to keep you safe,” he says when she stops moving, just crying. It’s awkward, sitting in the middle seat, twisting around so he can face her, but he bears it. “Do you want to be held, chickadee?” Mary lets out a sad whine, still crying and Clint decides to just go for it, pulling her out of her seat into his arms. She’s still wearing his jacket and Clint takes care not to hold her too tight, in case she had any bad experiences. “It’ll be alright,” he reassures her, “I’m not too bad at this, am I? Never really hung out with kids before.”

“Is Mommy dead?”

“No, she’s just very hurt,” Clint shakes his head, brushing a kiss on her dark hair. Maybe it’s because he’s a genuinely decent person, under all his bad deeds, but seriously – Clint feels like he’s handling Mary almost _too_ well. _Maybe that’s why I was chosen to look after her,_ he thinks, grimacing at the thought of someone like Sitwell – stiff, distant and not adult-friendly, let alone kid-friendly – looking after this little girl having nightmares in the back of his car. “You’ll see her again when she’s better, I promise.”

“P-p-pinky promise?” she sobs. Clint immediately roots around for one of her hands in his jacket, finding one and linking their pinkies, meeting her eyes.

“I double pinky promise, you will see your mommy again when she’s better. Do you believe me, Mary?”

Mary nods. “I b-believe you, Clinton.”

A snort escapes his nose. _Clinton? God, nobody calls me that._ “Mary, while I’m with you, you can call me Clint.”

“B-b-but I’m not a-a _big_ _person_.”

“Being big doesn’t matter, unless it needs to. It doesn’t need to, right now,” Clint says, bopping her nose and wiping some of her tears with his thumb. Strangely, it’s a lot wetter than they show in the movies and it takes him a couple of swipes to decently clear her face. “So, call me Clint, or Hawkeye. That’s my codename. Cool, right?”

“Why?”

“Iowa, the Hawkeye state – it was my name in the circus. I was one of the best archers in the country. Still am, I suppose. I got better over the years, though.” Clint shuffles a bit, adjusting his grip on Mary so he can reach over the seats to the boot, grabbing the survival kit and dragging it over. “We’re going to have a sleepover in the car, tonight, so if you have a nightmare, I can wake you up. If I have a nightmare, you get to wake _me_ up.”

“You have nightmares, too?”

“Everyone has nightmares, kiddo,” Clint says, unpacking the sleeping bag and blankets, putting the rest of the survival kit in the footwell of the passenger seat. “You’re getting the sleeping bag. I’ll take the blankets.”

“I’ve never slept in a sleeping bag before.”

“Well, tonight’s going to be fun, isn’t it?” Clint grins at her, revelling in how she smiles through her sniffles. “Let’s get you set up, then.”

* * *

The next day, Clint convinces Mary to ‘play pretend’. If people ask, Clint is her dad and he’s called _Jake_. If people ask, Mary isn’t called _Mary-Sue Poots_ , she’s called _Louise Ellen_. Mary knows they’re going into hiding, so Clint doesn’t lie to her, telling her that this is important.

“Bad guys can track you down by your name and what you look like. When we stop for supplies, I’m going to braid your hair back, okay?”

“Never had a braid before,” Mary says in reply.

“Awesome. I get to make amazing braids and when you’re older and someone else does them, you’ll remember mine because they were _perfect_.”

They stop at a Walmart and Clint makes a game of it. _We’ve got to pretend we’re moving house, but everything we owned got lost when the house broke in an earthquake. We’re from Oregon, going to go live with my mom, your gramma, in Dubuque._ They get clothes, suitcases, toys, pots and pans and an egg timer that Mary sees and insists they get. It’s a funky egg-timer, to be fair, made to look like a baby chicken in bright yellow. When the timer went off, its eyes go googly.

Clint also gets coloured hair extensions, going to the bathroom after they buy them to stick them in Mary’s hair, braiding her hair into a crown around her head, neon blue and purple flashing through it.

“I look pretty!” Mary exclaims, leaning closer to the mirror to stare at her hair, twisting to see. Clint grins, crossing his arms, feeling smug and proud of his work. “Can I have make-up, too?”

“Sure,” Clint says, ready for the question. Using the giant make-up set he bought, in case they needed to change their looks drastically, he does Mary’s make-up, not for the first time praising himself for actually paying attention to Sara in the circus, when she did the other performers’ make-up and the customers’ face-paint.

Sometimes, Clint thinks he could have gone into hair and beauty, once he’d left the circus – it’s not like he couldn’t have dealt with the stigma, either. The cashier just before had looked at him suspiciously for buying the make-up case. _I bet the only reason they didn’t call me a fag was because I had Mary with me._ To be fair though, it’s not like Clint hasn’t experimented with either sex. He ponders his own sexuality as he finishes Mary’s make-up, happy that she has the ability to stay still.

The rest of the day is spent driving. Driving, driving and driving. By the time they get to the safe-house in Wausau, Wisconsin, Mary had complained enough that Clint stopped at a store to get her a Nintendo Gameboy to distract her with. When they go to take their new belongings into the safe-house, Clint debates on whether to leave the dozens of discarded toys on the floor of the backseat or not.

“We might need to scarper,” he reasons, looking to Mary on the sidewalk. “Hey, chickadee – pick six toys to take inside. The others stay in the car.” Mary’s heartbroken expression makes Clint uncomfortable, but he sticks with his guns. “Six. Now come pick, before I do it for you.”

Mary picks six of her toys, then tries to take in another by hiding a figurine in her pocket with her Gameboy.

“Hey,” Clint crouches down in front of her, “I said six. You can keep your Gameboy as well, as number seven, but you aren’t allowed a number eight. If you want a different toy, we can come and get a different one and put an old one in the car to replace it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Mary says and for a moment, Clint wonders why she’s calling him _daddy,_ until he realises that there’s a person approaching from behind. Mary puts one of her toys back as they pass and Clint waits until they’ve turned the corner to praise her.

“Good girl. You’re a very clever girl.” Mary blushes and Clint hugs her impulsively, feeling Mary reciprocate easily and tightly. He squeezes gently. “Let’s go inside.”

* * *

_Elsewhere:_

Melinda’s next punch makes the man’s teeth crunch and he groans, spitting out a tooth.

“I want a name,” Melinda demands, voice low.

“No names,” the man moans, “not part of the contract-” Melinda punches him again. “I don’t know his name!”

“So they’re a _he_ , then,” she picks up, digging her fingers into a deep slice in his shoulder. He lets out a hoarse yell. “What did he look like? Ethnicity, nationality, hair colour, _anything._ ”

“American,” the man rasps, voice tight as she removes her hand. “About thirty. He was desperate. Looked like he’d get a new grey hair every day from stress. Sort of like that guy from _Twin Peaks_ , but not ginger. Brunette. Said she was his daughter that was stolen from him.”

“Anything else you can think of would be helpful and will probably extend your life,” Melinda states. She watches him panic and goes to dig into his wound again, when he shouts.

“He was a doctor! He had a bag – the Doctors Without Borders logo was on it!”

Melinda takes this in, before punching him again, this time knocking him out. She leaves the room, setting the room alight, throwing her bloodied leather gloves into the blaze. The SHIELD agents on her tail will be left to find him, their single lead to Maria Hill’s attackers burnt to cinders. Fury said to clean up after herself and she damn will do.

Getting into her car, Melinda looks to the file Fury had given her. _Mystery massacre in an unnamed village in the Hunan Province. An agent found an 084 in the form of a baby girl – my daughter, according to blood tests – who was the only survivor. Placed into foster-care, always moving to keep her hidden…_

“An oh-eight-four,” Melinda thinks of the people who must have adopted her daughter. This American doctor must have gone mad. His village slaughtered, his wife presumably dead and his daughter taken... “Did he watch? Did he run? Is he the one who killed everyone?” Melinda will have to find him. It’s not just a matter of loose ends anymore – this wasn’t someone trying to get to Melinda.

This was someone trying to find their family.

Melinda thinks of Maria Hill, damaged beyond any extent a Communications agent in SHIELD has been injured in the last forty years. _All for her,_ Melinda thinks of her daughter, remembering her soft skin and little tuft of hair. _Nuns named her Mary-Sue. What did her parents name her? When did she start speaking? Was she crawling or walking when she was taken from them?_

The windows of the building shatter, fire billowing out. Melinda glances at it before driving off, knowing that because she’d broken the security cameras, she couldn’t be identified.

_Now, to find this ‘doctor’._

* * *

The safe house is pretty empty. Mary doesn’t seem to mind though. Clint contacts Sitwell to tell him that he’s got them both holed away. What he does not expect is to hear _Fury’s put you on indefinite babysitting._

“What the actual hell, Sitwell?” Clint questions because while he doesn’t mind looking after Mary, to be _indefinitely babysitting?_ Clint is an Operations agent, meant to fight and- and _not be sitting on his ass for however long they need him._ Sitwell tries to pass it off as protective detail, but Clint isn’t having it. “I want to be put through to someone higher up the chain, Sitwell. I’m not having this. Mary’s sweet, but she’s a kid, a _foster-kid_. She needs stability. I’m only supposed to be temporarily assigned to her-”

“ _I’ve got no input here, Barton,_ ” Sitwell says, interrupting. “ _I’ve tried to see why she needs someone with your skill looking after her, but her file’s classified – Level Sevens only._ ”

“Level _seven?_ ” Clint whistles, eyes widening. He twists, leaning back in his chair to see through the kitchen door to Mary in front of the TV, playing with Action Men. He leans back over the table, wiping his face slightly. “I don’t believe you. Who are her real parents?”

“ _Classified. There was a blood test done when she was a baby, but I can’t see the results of anything from that, except that she’s blood type B-negative and she was born mid-nineteen eighty-eight. Her whole file was blacked out when I received it. The sweep we did of Hill’s house got basically nothing. She likes pink and blue, maybe – she’s got a lot of Beauty and the Beast paraphernalia. Hill’s house is practically empty. Their only personal belongings are fabric._ ”

“She left nothing to chance. She knew,” Clint mumbles. “Hill was what? A level above us?”

“ _Something like that. I think she just got promoted to Level Six._ ”

“Okay, I’m no good at maths, but I know six minus four is two,” Clint says, grumbling a bit. “Why am I still Level Four, again?”

“ _Because you have disciplinary issues when you aren’t working with Coulson. Learn not to be a cheeky shit and you might get promoted. So anyway, just to recap, you’re babysitting and I’m complaining on your behalf._ ”

“You got that right.”

“ _Great. Coulson or Garret?_ ”

“Garret,” Clint says. “Coulson’ll probably say it’s a learning experience.”

“ _Going behind your recruiting agent’s back…see, this is why you don’t get promoted._ ”

“Shut up and complain at them for me,” Clint rolls his eyes and hangs up, leaning back in his chair to look at Mary. “Hey, chickadee, go get the phonebook from beside the door. It’s time for you to pick a name for yourself.”

“I like Louise.”

“Nope, new name. This one won’t be pretend, either. I’m going to be with you for a long time, kiddo,” Clint says, coming up with a plan as he speaks. “We’re going to make up a story based on the truth and we’re going to stick with it for ages and ages.” Mary frowns, Action Men resting in her lap. Clint sighs. “Get the phone book and bring it to the kitchen. We’re going to have a big, big talk, okay?”

Mary doesn’t say anything, making Clint wince. She still does as he says though, collecting the phone book and bringing it to the kitchen. Clint takes it, setting it on the table and patting the chair beside him for her to sit on. As she climbs up, Clint tries to think of what to say and how to say it. He’s quiet for a minute and as he thinks, he takes out his hearing aid, itching his ear. He makes sure to keep an eye on Mary as he does, reading her lips when she speaks.

“What’s that?”

“It helps me hear,” Clint says, putting it back in. “When I don’t have it in, I read peoples lips, or speak to them in ASL – American sign language. I’m learning foreign sign languages too, in case something happens abroad and I can’t communicate with anyone…or if something happens abroad and I need to _pretend_ I can’t communicate with anyone.”

Mary blinks at him for a second, before her eyes widen and she giggles, hiding a smile behind her hands. Clint grins at her, happy his joke works on kids.

“Can you teach me?”

“Sure,” Clint says before thinking. After the word has slipped out of his mouth, he pauses and internally panics about teaching sign to a kid – but aren’t kids supposed to pick up languages far more easily than adults? “I’ll teach you,” he confirms, speaking slowly. “So that you can pretend as well. Pretending is going to be a big part of your life, chickadee and for that, I’m sorry.”

“Why is it going to be big?”

“Because…because you’re special, Mary,” Clint tells her quietly, twisting in his chair to lean over a little, evening the height differential. _She’s so young,_ he thinks, staring at her. Mary is five and she’s never had a permanent home. Maria Hill could have honestly fostered her out of the goodness of her heart, but somehow, Clint doubts it. Maybe it became genuine as time went on, but she fostered Mary because she knew something – who her biological parents are, most likely, something that both puts Mary in danger and potentially compromises her parents.

Clint can’t think of any other reason.

… _except one,_ the thought comes from the back of his head. _SHIELD was meant to contain the weird and dangerous. What if this isn’t a ‘dangerous’ situation – what if this is a ‘weird’?_

“You’re so special that I’m going to adopt you,” he states without provocation, making an internal memo to phone Sitwell about cancelling that complaint. “I’m going to keep you safe for as long as I can and I’m going to look after you, as well, as my own daughter.”

“You’re going to be my _actual_ daddy?” Mary asks, eyes getting watery.

“Yes,” Clint says, “but there are conditions. One is that you have to become a completely new person, Mary. You have to choose a new name and create a story about what happened before we were together. Something close to the truth – like how your mom was really hurt and can’t look after you anymore. We’re going to cut your hair and I’m going to ask my bosses if a friend of mine can join us. Her name is Laura and she’s a secretary. She also rescues animals. She is also my girlfriend. Hopefully, you’ll get to meet Kate, too.”

“Who’s Kate?” Mary questions.

“Laura’s cat. Laura will say her name is Hawkeye, but seriously, that’s _my_ name, so her cat is called Kate, okay?”

“Okay,” Mary says, lip trembling. “So, you’re going to be my new daddy, for real?”

“For real, chickadee,” Clint says, not surprised when she launches herself at him, having seen her moving before she leaped. He can hear her crying into his shoulder and can feel the wet patch starting to grow. “Alright, alright…” he hugs her tightly, unable to contain his smile. “Are these happy tears? Please tell me they’re happy tears.”

“Happy. I’m _so_ happy. You’re gonna be my _daddy!_ ”

Clint grins. “Duty of care, chickadee. You aren’t going to be able to get rid of me. Double pinky promise,” he raises his hand, watching Mary wrap her tiny pinky around his. He shakes it, before reaching for the phonebook. “Now. How about we try finding you a new name, baby bird?”

* * *

_One month after the attack on Maria Hill:_

“He needs therapy.”

“He needs to live in a damn mental hospital,” Fury mutters as they watch an agent interrogate Doctor Calvin Johnson through the glass window. Melinda looks at him with only half-concealed pity. “Barton did something…not completely stupid. Idiotic. Rebellious.”

“What?”

“Take a look at the newly adopted _Daisy Louise Barton._ Hell of a coincidence and if Barton were any more travelled and seasoned an agent, I’d call bullshit.” Fury gives her a folded piece of paper. Melinda takes it, unfolding it. It’s two separate photocopies on a single piece of paper, one with an adoption certificate, signed _Clinton Francis Barton_ and _Laura Megan Thompson_ and the other, a picture in black and white of a man Melinda recognises as Agent Barton holding a young girl in a courthouse, kissing her forehead.

Melinda looks at Daisy Barton – Mary-Sue Poots, Daisy Johnson, _Julie May_ – and releases a shaky breath.

“Does he know that Coulson…”

“No,” Fury says. “Barton’s only a Level Four agent. Sitwell tried to get her file. It was classified Level Seven then – I’ve had it reclassified as Level Eight since then and updated it myself. Daisy Barton will have a second file at whatever level Barton manages at the time, like normal.”

“Thank-you, Director,” Melinda murmurs, before handing back the paper. Fury tucks it in his pocket, before taking out another paper, this one a small, glossy photo of Daisy that he hands over to her. The second exchange is wordless and they watch the agent talking to Doctor Johnson call in some muscle to restrain him as he loses his temper, lashing out. The agent turns to the glass window.

“ _I’d recommend containment in a medical facility._ ”

Fury leans forwards, pressing the comm button. “Arrange it.”

“ _Yes, sir._ ”


	2. smoothies.1.1

“…am I hallucinating or is there a strange man in my workshop?”

Tony’s question is answered by the lowered gun turrets from the ceiling. The strange man glances at them and it’s strange, but Tony looks at him and it’s like he’s not even…there. He can’t see him, but he…can. Tony can tell he’s mostly wearing green, for example, maybe even a green cape. Dark hair. In his right hand, he’s holding something that shines orange through the golden handkerchief it’s wrapped in.

“Anthony Edward Stark, a man with so much…potential. Half the people of this world are in awe of you for your inventions – the others, terrified.” The man says, voice smooth and calculating. Tony reaches into a nearby drawer, standing up from his desk chair and raising a gun. “I wish to request a favour.”

“How did you get in here? Who are you? Why are you…fuzzy? J, are you actually seeing him properly?”

“ _Yes, sir, though only through the live feed. I am retaining no data of his appearance, however._ ”

“Huh. So, what do you want?”

The man holds out the glowing handkerchief. “I am the Silvertongue – the Liesmith and the Trickster. People call me Scar-Lip, the Sky-Walker and Shapeshifter.” _Okay, now I want to make a Star Wars pun,_ Tony thinks, but the man keeps speaking, raising his hand higher. “Here in my grasp is a rare and precious device. Its power should never be used and for all my talents, I cannot hide it in my possession. In full truth, I am too powerful a being to keep custody of it.”

“…right. So, you want _me_ to take it?” Tony raises his eyebrow. “What is it really? A bomb? A grenade? Are you here to assassinate me, because honestly, I’d rather not die on the first day of the new millennium.”

“Arrogant and so very predictable,” the man says, lowering his hand and looking around the workshop. “It is a precious commodity, this stone. Unique in its entirety…giving it to another grown sentient directly assures the aura it puts out does not have time to begin calling out for its sister-gems. You would not be overwritten, unlike some of your creations. I have been watching you, Anthony.”

“Not creepy whatsoever,” Tony quips, adjusting his aim as the man moves across the lab, towards DUM-E. “Stop moving,” he orders, thinking _overwritten._ He clicks off the safety of his gun, but the man keeps moving, coming to a stop a few feet from his precious robot AI. “I’m giving you one last warning.” The man pays him no attention, holding the shining…stone, gem, _whatever_ , out to DUM-E. “Dummy, no,” Tony curses in his head as his _stupid, stupid_ baby-bot twirls his claw, moving backwards and forwards before reaching out to take it.

“I charge you with protecting this Infinity Stone, child,” the man says and it’s the last word that makes Tony pause instead of firing – a mistake, it seems, as almost immediately after the man lets go of the shining gem, DUM-E squeals in fright, panicking. The gem glows bright, golden handkerchief slipping off to reveal an orange gem barely bigger than a bottle-cap, but it burns Tony to look at it. He turns away, brain on _fire_. It’s like it’s turning to _goo_ and Tony hears JARVIS calling out for them both, before he wakes up on the ground.

“Jarvis?”

“ _Sir, something has happened to Dummy,_ ” JARVIS states, voice quiet, coming from Tony’s computer speakers rather than the surround sound. Tony sits up, wincing. Rubbing his head, he looks around, finding the man almost immediately.

He’s still fuzzy and barely able to be seen, but he’s there, sitting cross-legged. Tony looks around, trying to find DUM-E, but the bot is gone. Worry and anger growing inside him – worry for DUM-E, for his baby bot and anger for this stranger who has _done_ something to his bot – Tony gets up, grabbing a nearby wrench upon seeing his gun gone and stalking towards the man, intent on knocking him out.

“ _Sir, please wait!_ ” JARVIS says a little louder, tone warning. Tony goes to question his AI’s unusual behaviour, only to see something strange in front of the man, sticking out of DUM-E’s charging station.

“Is that…a foot?”

It’s a foot. It’s most definitely _a foot._ Tony stares, cataloguing what is in front of him. He walks to stand beside the man, looking into DUM-E’s charging station, where a small tanned child – _boy_ , he corrects – sits, shivering under a beautiful woven blanket, gold woven around the edges in a geometric design.

“Jörmungandr,” the man murmurs. “The Infinity Stone fused them together. My son died. I placed his soul in a container, unknowing that the method I used to save him was one of great power. The Stone took his soul unto itself and lit up like a beacon. I am still recovering, though in truth, I am still hiding it, as well. Myself, too. Heimdall cannot be allowed to see.”

“Who _are_ you?” Tony hisses, not taking his eyes off the boy. “Who is _that?_ Your son? Where’s Dummy?”

“The Infinity Stone fused them together,” the man repeats, falling silent. It takes Tony less time to figure out what the man means, but it’s more of a denial thing than a figuring-it-out thing that has him struggling to form a reply. “Dummy and Jörmungandr. Stark, I suppose. He would not be able to bear my name – traces, the barest of trails could lead to his death.”

“Death?” Tony questions, stomach flipping. “Who’d kill a child?”

“His own grandfather,” the man says, unamused and Tony feels strangely untethered. This is…

“Unbelievable. Impossible.”

“‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’,” the man quotes.

“Arthur Conan Doyle. Crap. Crap, crap, crap-”

“Crap,” the child copies, causing Tony to completely pause, brain skipping.

“ _Crap,_ ” he says again, groaning.

“Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap-”

“No,” the man says, voice firm. “You do not say that word. Swearing and profanity are not allowed. Do you understand?” The boy – _DUM-E? Jormun-whatsit?_ – stares at the unseeable man for a few long moments before nodding. The man shakes his head. “Please use your language skills to reply. It is important, so to assess your vocabulary.”

“I understand,” the boy says in a stilted voice, before looking to Tony. “Sir. I am not charging. My charging station is functional. I am in need of repair.”

“You can’t be repaired right now,” Tony replies, rubbing his head again and tentatively stepping forwards, reaching to pick…DUM-E, up. “I can’t believe I call you Dummy. You’re a kid. An actual kid. This is messing me up.” Tony wraps the blanket a bit more around him, noticing the lack of right arm immediately. “Left-handed, right-arm amputee child. Awesome.” Then he sees an orange glint and transfers him to one arm so he can take DUM-E’s hand, peering at the orange gem stuck inside his palm. “Hey, Luke, what-” he turns to where the man was sitting, only to find him gone.

“JARVIS, where did he go?” Tony questions, looking around the lab. It’s empty.

“ _I do not know, sir. Unfortunately, my databanks only have a transcript of your conversation. It seems as soon as he disappeared, I could not recall he existed, except via the transcript. He seemed to wield fearsome technology._ ”

“You got that right. I think he turned Dummy into a human being.”

* * *

The first thing he does is have JARVIS make a list of things to get Human DUM-E.

  1. A new name
  2. Clothes
  3. A blood test to check: 
    1. To see if he’s actually, properly human
    2. To see if he’s somehow Tony’s son
    3. To take a note of his blood type and any other genetic abnormal markers
  4. A prosthetic arm
  5. A room
  6. Toys (because kids like toys)
  7. Snacks



“My designation is- is Dummy. Jörmungandr.” DUM-E blinks, brow furrowing for a moment. “I have multiple designations. Dummy. Jörmungandr. Dunce. Midgard-Sormr…sir, what is my designation?”

“Uh…” Tony blinks. “Well, your designation…Dummy and Jörmungandr. Jörmungandr, that sounds like it’s with a J, right Jarvis?”

“ _Yes, sir. Perhaps an amalgam. DJ, perhaps?_ ”

“Just what I was thinking. We’re awesome, J,” Tony says to his AI, before looking to DUM-E/Jörmungandr. “Your new designation is DJ. If you ever go back to being a bot, I’ll call you Dummy, okay?”

“Okay, sir.” DJ says, reaching his single hand up to the blanket, pulling it around him. “I have two parallel memory banks. Father spoke to you, before.”

“Mystery dude who said he was a Skywalker.”

“ _The_ Sky-Walker,” DJ stresses, frowning. “Father did many magnificent things that those of Asgard saw as strange. He saved…Jörmungandr. Me. They chased him. He ran. My secondary memory bank is…large. Jörmungandr was nearly two hundred years old.”

“Well, that’s…cool,” Tony says, still not quite convinced that DJ is his bot. “So, you remember being Dummy, as well?”

“I _am_ Dummy,” DJ says, squeezing the blanket tighter in his singular hand. “You’re my creator. I woke in your room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when you were inebriated. You built Jarvis because _Mister Jarvis_ died and Butterfingers is supposed to be my new friend, when he’s finished.”

Tony balks. “You remember that?”

“Affirmative.”

There are a few, long moments of silence before a small noise penetrates Tony’s brain. The inventor raises an eyebrow, looking down at DJ’s rumbling torso.

“Well, that’s telling. J, move _snacks_ further up the list and contact my doctor, ask if she knows anyone specialising in children’s medicine. I want DJ to have a full check-up. Figure out a story for this kid. How old would you judge him, by appearance?”

“ _I do not have the appropriate systems to judge his age by appearance, sir._ ”

Tony sighs, before readjusting his grip on the kid, making his way out of the workshop. “Warn Happy and order pizza.”

“ _Of course, sir._ ”

“So,” Tony speaks to DJ again, “how do you feel about an upgrade? Two hands are better than one, as they say.”

DJ looks at his armless shoulder. As Tony walks up the spiral stair of his Malibu mansion – finished just in time for New Years, only to sadly not have a _welcome to your new home_ house party, due to Tony being abroad over the holidays – as DJ thinks. It’s downright strange to compare DUM-E and DJ in his head, but he can see it if he squints – the way DJ tilts his head back in forth and broadly strokes his foot up and down in mechanical movement. _Ticks,_ Tony thinks, tilting his head back and forth before abruptly realising that DUM-E has been copying him.

 _I tilted my head…_ Tony does it again, thinking back quickly to all of DUM-E’s habits and mannerisms, coming up with parallels to his own movements. _I actually have a kid,_ he thinks, dumbstruck. His grip on DJ tightens. _I have a fucking **kid**. My kid is a bot. Oh my god, but-_

“Father said no profanity or swearing,” DJ says and Tony realises he’d been thinking out loud.

“Right. Sorry. Don’t repeat what I said. Do you think of Jarvis as your brother?”

“Yes.”

Tony blows air out of his mouth, finishing climbing the stairs. He takes a moment to catch his breath, making a new-millennium oath to go to the gym more.

“What do you think of that, Jarvis?” Tony questions his AI as he heads for the kitchen.

“ _It is hard to describe my thoughts on the matter. Logically, yes, I would agree that DJ is my brother, as a fellow creation of yours. In that essence, you are also our father._ ”

“Yep, that’s me, father of robots – patent that, would you?”

“ _I believe these are the kinds of things you advise me on actually doing, sir._ ”

“You can call me Dad,” Tony says magnanimously, not fully expecting JARVIS to agree.

“ _Thank-you, though I would prefer Father._ ” JARVIS states, sounding pleased, then disapproving. “ _Your own personal connotations for ‘Dad’ are quite…troubling._ ”

Tony’s stomach flip-flops, even as his heart blooms with awe and – dare he think it – _love._ “Thanks, buddy. When’s the pizza coming?”

“ _Forty-five minutes, Father._ ”

It puts a kind of shiver in his bones, to hear JARVIS say it. _Father._ Howard Stark had been modern, supposedly, making Tony call him Dad or Sir. In retrospect, Tony’s surprised that he hasn’t been set off before by people calling him _sir_ , but then again, it’s something he’s had to deal with since the original Jarvis, calling him _young Sir_ and _the young Master_ from the age of two, that Tony can remember, anyway _._

 _There’s a new generation of Stark’s on the block,_ Tony thinks, smiling slightly as he sets DJ on a seat, turning on the TV. _My worst nightmare, come true around me._ He thinks of the supposed scandal he’ll have to release to the press about his ‘bastard son’. DJ is entranced by the television, which JARVIS has changed to Disney Playhouse. _Bear in the Big Blue House_ turns out to be pretty neat. Tony makes another internal note – a ‘family moment’ he can tell the papers looking for some cutesy family business.

DJ looks like he did when he was a kid. If Tony squints, he can imagine himself superimposed on top – they aren’t that different, in general. DJ has his Italian tan, his dark brown hair and his face. The only thing that might be off is his nose – straighter and smaller than Tony’s – and his jaw – which is tighter and more triangular by far. He’ll have some good cheekbones, that’s for sure. DJ’s eyes are a bit of a mystery, too, being a brilliant emerald green.

But there’s still the matter of his age. Tony doesn’t hang out with kids enough to guess his age right, but he’d bet around seven, or maybe ten. Honestly, Tony hasn’t a clue.

“How old are you in human years, then, kiddo?” he questions, remembering the comment about this ‘Jörmungandr’ self of his being two hundred. _Extraterrestrials,_ Tony internally wonders at the thought, making a baseless guess that the Skywalker wannabe got his advanced technology from an alien culture. He almost giggles. _I had ET in my basement._

DJ takes a second to process his words, glancing at him before shrugging, eyes going back to the screen. Tony raises his eyebrows, having not expected the kiddish attitude so soon. Shaking his head, Tony takes a notepad and pen out of his pocket, using his own style of shorthand to write out his thoughts. _I’ve got to make some kind of hand-held interface to take notes on, maybe some kind of…computer tablet…oh that’s good…_

Quickly, preparing DJ’s life gets side-lined as Tony starts bulleting options for what the computer tablet could do and penning out the basic component designs. Only when the doorbell rings for pizza does Tony snap out of Focus Mode.

“Food,” he says to his son – his _son,_ his son, _DJ_ – who startles at the doorbell. Getting out of his seat, he goes to collect, grabbing some spare bills out of his pockets. The shaky pizza boy outside his house meets his eyes nervously.

“One pepperoni stuffed crust with jalapenos and one plain mixed cheese for Tony Stark?”

“Working on the first day of the new millennium,” Tony shakes his head, pressing a few hundred dollar bills into his pocket. “Keep the change.” Taking the pizza, he watches the pizza boy take out his money, eyes going wide. As he looks up, vocal chords straining, Tony shuts the door, happy with the reaction he got for his charity.

_Now, to introduce my son to pizza._

* * *

Before he speaks to the Press, but after he gets all DJ’s paperwork worked out, skirting the edge of the law to get a few documents backdated, Tony gathers his closest. He even manages to get Rhodey in on the fun – though Happy, for once, lives up to his name at knowing something before everyone else did.

Obie, perhaps predictably, raises his eyebrows at the sight of DJ. “Another one?”

“No,” Tony says with a smug face, knowing he means the few dozen women who come along each year claiming to have birthed his child. “This one is legit. His mom found happiness with another guy and when she died, DJ’s step-father brought him to me. Last time I checked, he couldn’t keep the kid because of some other family trouble. Dad’s a raging lunatic or something who needs special care.”

“Tones, this is…amazing,” Rhodey says, sounding slightly awed and not just a little excited. He crouches in front of DJ, smiling. “Hey, kid. What’s your name? Your dad tell you ‘bout me? I’m James.”

“Rhodey,” Tony interrupts, “that’s Rhodey. This is DJ Stark – Diego Jörmungandr. Don’t ask about the second part, that’s all on his other dad.”

Tony watches DJ carefully as he studies Rhodey, hoping that his – apparently – eight year old brain works well enough for him to remember not to react. Tony doesn’t know whether or not he’ll be telling him – or anyone – about DUM-E turning into DJ, but even if it’s just until then, DJ has to pretend he’s never met Rhodey. When Tony told DJ, he’d gotten a bigger reaction than he thought he’d ever get, DJ practically screaming the roof down and crying till he fell asleep.

It seems luck is on his side, however, because DJ waves _hi_ silently, in a shy manner. He grips Tony’s jeans tightly, glancing at four of the most important people in Tony’s life, gaze lingering on Pepper.

“So, now you’ve met both my bodyguard and my best friend from MIT, I’d like to introduce you to Pepper and Obie.” Tony nudges DJ’s head gently with his hand, practically caressing him. “Pepper’s my assistant. You’ll probably see her a lot.”

“Hello, DJ,” Pepper says, wiggling her fingers. “I’m Virginia Potts.”

“Pepper, her name is Pepper, because she’s got a spicy attitude. Makes me sneeze,” Tony pokes a little fun, making DJ giggle a bit, grip on his trousers loosening. “Obie was like the uncle I never had, growing up. I know he looks big and scary, but really, he’s got some cracking jokes hidden away in that big, shiny head of his.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Obie says dryly.

“Your welcome,” Tony replies unashamedly, grinning at him, looking for approval.

He doesn’t get it.

Less than ten minutes later, Obie takes him aside. “You can’t seriously be thinking of actually taking custody of him, Anthony. You’re not suitable parent material.”

“He’s my son.”

“We both know that his being biologically yours does not make him your son, your relationship with Howard being a prime example,” Obi says scathingly. “You need to be _focused_ , Tony. You already waste so much time on partying and _women_ , when you should be designing things for Stark Industries. Our contracts are time-sensitive and having a boy to look after-”

“I am not my father and if I ever treat DJ like Howard treated me, know that I’ll have _myself_ arrested,” Tony interrupts, hissing angrily. “That is my _son._ ”

“What good can he do you, Tony? Is he a genius? Can he even talk? I haven’t heard him say a single word.”

“DJ is perfectly capable of speaking,” Tony murmurs darkly. “I don’t know if he’s a genius.”

“And his arm? What happened there?”

“Genetics,” Tony excuses, passing off what he assumes is his own flawed design from only giving DUM-E one claw, translated appropriately onto a human body. Then he thinks of DJ’s blood tests and the amazing, _astounding_ seven extra chromosome pairs that denote him as _anything_ but Human. _Well, translated appropriately into a human **oid** body. _ “I’m going to make him a prosthesis. Could make an entire little run of designs, make affordable prosthetics for veterans.”

That, at least, seems to stymie Obie somewhat. “I still don’t like it, but if you can make it work, Tony…just don’t forget about Stark Industries. That’s your priority.”

Tony wants to disagree with that, because even Howard put Tony first – even when he was supposed to be _searching for Captain America_. When Tony was kidnapped, he came straight home and either paid his ransom, got the police to do their damn job in locating him or had SHIELD save his ass. When Tony broke his arm so badly he had to have surgery, Howard was there when he woke up to tell him what happened and convince him to stop panicking. Howard might have never been particularly nice about it, ever, but Tony was always first priority. Always.

So, he thinks, _and if Howard Stark can put his most hated son before SI, then so can I_.

* * *

The Press release goes well. There are a few hiccoughs along the way – like a journalist probing too deep for comfort and the resulting investigation from SHIELD that Tony and JARVIS barely keep on top of – but in general, DJ’s reception is taken nicely. Meanwhile, Tony begins rudimentary designs for prosthetics that DJ can use and gets to know his son.

They go out to restaurants and strip-malls. People snap pictures and DJ learns that Happy’s directions are usually a good idea to follow. It’s a little strange for Tony, who wants to go off on his own, wants to flirt and hook up with women, wants to ditch Happy entirely and have a day to himself…only to find his responsibility for DJ holding him back. It’s annoying, it’s frustrating-

It’s also completely wonderful.

Not only is _having a son_ an amazing experience, getting to introduce him to new things like maths – DJ is _definitely_ a genius, a computer in humanoid form – cotton candy – DJ prefers pink to blue – and _grass_ – who’d have thought that a former-bot would love rolling around in grass so much? – is just a total mind-fuck. It’s like reliving his childhood and Tony _seriously_ enjoys doing the things he never got to do, or never did with his parents.

A routine sets in. An _actual routine_ of sleeping, eating and spending time together _._ Tony can’t just work away in the workshop for days on end. DJ needs to be looked after. For the first two months, he introduces DJ to human life, working from home and sending Pepper in his place, much to her surprise. He even signs some documents that say she can make minor decisions on his behalf – though obviously, the major decisions are Stark-only. There aren’t actually that many, to his happy relief. Tony just focuses on DJ and designing, teaching DJ mathematics, physics, engineering and electronics.

…it pains him to say he has a series of tutors come in to help with the rest, but to be fair, Tony never actually majored in English and he doesn’t have a teaching degree.

DJ learns how to write and read letters in English, as well as beginning three other languages – Italian, Mandarin and Greek. Tony speaks them to him when they spend time together, refreshing his own memory and helping DJ learn more conversational language. The tutors teach him world history as well, along with world politics, media, general sciences, health and safety, religious, moral and philosophical studies, varied applied arts and even PE – though considering how normal PE is a bit drab, DJ’s schedule is kind of…varied. There’s more hand-to-hand fighting, for one and a lot more focused gymnastics.

Tony is _not_ pushing DJ too hard, no matter what anyone else says. In fact, it’s DJ who asks for more, enjoying learning. His enthusiasm grows even more when Tony arranges for his lessons to take place in various outdoor locations around the edge of the mansion – after checking with his tutors, of course. He originally made the mistake of starting with DJ’s science teacher, who just about threw up when Tony led them to the balcony looking over the cliff-face.

“Why not put him in school?” Rhodey asks at one point, a few days before he has to go back on duty. “Kids need to be around other kids – it’s how they learn social skills and improve their immune systems.”

“Really? Probably explains why I only have four friends,” Tony notes, before making arrangements for DJ to go to a fancy playdate day-care on Sundays, made for kids in exactly DJ’s circumstances. Rhodey shakes his head in amusement, but agrees it’s a good idea.

DJ does not think it’s a good idea.

“I do not want to leave the mansion without you. I do not want to be left behind,” DJ grips Tony’s shirt.

“Buddy, buddy, believe me when I say it’s as uncomfortable for me, too,” Tony says, already feeling the guilt clenching around his heart at DJ’s teary, green eyes. “You need to make friends, kiddo, speak to other kids.”

“I am not a _kid,_ I am an Artificial Intelligence and a _prince,_ ” DJ says, surprising Tony briefly.

_Wait, so does that mean Skywalker dude was a king? Or was he a prince, too? Crap, does that mean a king wants to kill my kid if he finds him?_

He recovers, however. “You’re going. No ifs, ands or buts. Make friends.”

The day-care idea works for about…two months. By then, DJ’s prosthetic is finished, more a robot arm than a prosthetic with sequential controls. The designs – plus it’s sister-designs and other more custom remedies – meant to go on the open market are getting checked over by the proper authorities and beta-fitted on various customers. DJ insists on painting his arm bright orange and disgruntled, Tony agrees, so long as he can put a design along the edges. DJ decides on…grass. Grass and daisies.

The new paint-job attracts some iffy attention to DJ. Basically, some of the boys filled with testosterone and stereotypical sexist propaganda at DJ’s day-care make fun of DJ’s arm. The moment DJ comes home in Happy’s limo three hours early and Tony sees confused tear-tracks, Tony has his first moment of Papa Bear Rage, as Happy lightly terms it when telling Pepper later. Tony’s all for pulling DJ out of the day-care entirely.

DJ, however, has done exactly what Tony told him to do: made friends.

“I want- I want to stay. Keira promised to be my buddy when we go to the park next week!” DJ cries. Tony flounders, then gives in, deciding to just contact the parents of the boys who made fun of DJ’s prosthetic. DJ has never missed a day of school and has kept a pretty solid schedule that Tony’s slightly scared to mess with, now. He’s just waiting for the ball to drop about improving his immune system and getting sick – DJ will _not_ be ready for a day off, that’s for sure.

The next week, Tony drops DJ off like usual at ten o’clock. It’s not even noon before he gets a house-call from the local police.

DJ has been kidnapped.

* * *

“Ooh, getting- _urgh_ \- fancy there, with those thunder thighs of yours- _uhhh-_ ” Clint lets out a pained, defeated groan as he’s slammed down onto the mat, letting out a whine as he taps out. “You’re just fucking brutal. You’re like fucking _air_.”

“Thank-you,” Natasha says, sliding off his body. She doesn’t offer him a hand up, but Clint has a bet with Phil on whether she will because she’ll pick it up as a blending-in habit or whether she won’t, because she’s a little shit.

Getting to his feet, Clint stretches his arms, rolling his shoulders. Looking to the clock on the wall, he blinks in surprise. “Hey! I lasted longer! How about that?”

“With how much I have been beating you during this past year of training, I’d hope you’d get a little better as time went by,” Natasha replies, before throwing a towel at his face. Clint catches it, still on alert, nodding to her in thanks as he wipes his face and neck, feeling like he’d need to be dunked in a lake to be clean again. “How do you have a family, with this life?”

Clint pauses, glancing at her warily.

“You have a picture in your wallet.”

“…well, it didn’t start out traditionally. Laura and I are both SHIELD. That’s how we met. She’s was a secretary – you might have met her legacy, Rolanda from accounting?”

Natasha tilts her head. “She sees to animals that the veterinarians want to put down, that other agents believe can be helped.”

Clint snorts. “To be fair, our veterinarians are actually just doctors who dabble. The couple that did animal science are only a bit better. Laura grew up around animals. Her parents brought up a wolf-hybrid they found in the pound. Rolanda took over from Laura when she left. It wasn’t really that much of a change – she works in setting up safe-houses and keeps long-term recovering field agents in our spare bedroom.”

“How does that work in regards to your daughter?”

“Daisy,” Clint puts his towel over his shoulder, grabbing his water bottle and sipping it. “She’s twelve in July. She doesn’t mind. Most times, she’s part of keeping them from getting bored enough to bolt. Every time a new agent comes to stay, she learns something new. I don’t even know what languages she speaks now. Laura’s managing to keep her fluent in most of them, thankfully.”

“Languages are useful,” Natasha notes. Clint shrugs.

“I’m fine with her knowing the basics – English, ASL, Mandarin. Laura speaks French and Spanish to her, so I’ve picked them up or remembered what I’ve forgotten, over the years.”

Natasha is quiet for a bit and Clint keeps silent, waiting for…anything, really. It’s only been a year and a half since he picked her up in Budapest, when she was on her way out from the Red Room. _Seriously, that was some hell of a mission._ Clint had been dealing with loads of shit and basically stumbled across her while being chased by members of a gang out for his blood. She, in turn, had the Russian FSB on her tail plus an evolved branch of the old KGB, _Leviathan_ – her creators, in other words. Clint thinks it’s a point in his favour that he knows the difference between Leviathan, _the_ _organisation_ and the Red Room, _the place._

“Are you my partner or my friend?” she eventually asks.

Clint doesn’t even have to think about it. “Both. If you want to be my friend as well, that’d be awesome.”

“Is Agent Coulson my friend?”

“You’d have to ask him that,” comes a new voice. Clint glances over at the newcomer, recognising Agent May from the couple of times they’d met through Phil. Clint gives her a jaunty wave as Natasha studies her, May in return weighing her up. “Are you normal or powered?”

“The Black Widow serum affects durability and the aging process,” Natasha replies.

“What else does it do?”

“Minor enhancements. The majority of what makes me the Black Widow is training.”

May hums, before motioning to the mat. Natasha nods sharply and Clint watches them as they go out onto the mats. Quickly, Clint gets a look at what he’s been sparring with for the past few months and blanches. The two women slowly gain an audience as the fight drags on. Clint watches as they test each other’s limits, finding weak points. Their spar turns into an endurance competition, eventually, as they stop pausing and simply _fight._

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Phil murmurs a short time after coming up beside him, clean and ready for his own gym session.

“It sure is impressive,” Clint replies. “You think I could take May?”

“She’d beat you.”

“I know, but like, eventually?”

“Give it twenty years,” Phil says, “Then _maybe_. Only because May would be getting old at that point, as well.”

“Age is never a factor with dangerous women. Peggy Carter can still pack a punch and she’s a hop and a skip away from a care home.”

“Agreed.”

The fight finishes at both women’s behest. May leaves after a few short words and an exchanged set of emails, in case either powerhouse want a decent sparring partner. Clint raises his eyebrow at Natasha’s face. He looks to Phil.

“Am I dreaming? Is our Natasha _smiling?_ ”

“I’m not sure,” Phil says in his usual mild tone, but his own lip is twirling further and further upwards, until a full-blown, white-toothed smile appears. Clint shakes his head, grinning.

* * *

Getting called to a conference room for a mission briefing is pretty unusual for Clint. It usually means that the mission he’s going into is ultra-sensitive and needs a briefing from a higher-ranked agent than Phil. It’s only when he sees Natasha does he realise this might not exactly be that kind of mission.

“I’m babysitting again, aren’t I?” he questions Phil, who tilts his head.

“Sit down, Barton,” he says, before turning on a projector. A picture of a boy appears. Clint vaguely recognises him, noting the prosthetic as an advanced model for this day and age. He’s pretty cute, with brown hair, green eyes and tan skin. “DJ Stark was kidnapped from his Sunday day-care last week. There has been no ransom given publicly or privately.”

“Stark has a kid?” Clint raises his eyebrow.

“DJ fell into Tony Stark’s grasp around New Year,” Phil says, before looking to Natasha. “Agent Romanova, your first mission with SHIELD is to locate and retrieve DJ Stark. Agent Barton will be your partner and you will both document the events of this mission for review. If your work is satisfactory and Agent Barton and I’s recommendation go through, you’ll be put on more missions.”

“Understood,” Natasha says, staring at the photo. “Has any work been done already, or am I starting from nothing?”

“We’ve got the address of the day-care and the car model that took him. The plates didn’t match any on the system and the police are scouring Point Dume for any sign of him. So far, they’ve come up with scratch. Because of that, Stark got in contact with us and pulled some strings. Frankly, when it comes to finding the missing child of the Merchant of Death, I think we’re the better option than the police. From this point onwards, you’re on duty, Romanova. I’d get cracking.”

“Yes, sir,” Natasha says and Clint finds himself nodding along.

* * *

“You’ve got to stop worrying so much, Tony,” Obie soothes. Tony doesn’t pay attention to him, scouring the satellite footage for signs of the truck that took DJ away. “The police will find him and if they don’t, a ransom will be given soon enough.”

“My own ransoms came quicker than this, unless they were trying to make my parents sweat. I have to find him, Obie. I _have_ to find him.”

Obie’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, an uncomfortable weight that Tony wants to shrug off. “Tony. A ransom will come.”

“You sound so sure. DJ could be _dead_.”

Obie eventually leaves and Tony sinks back into his chair, completely shattered. He hasn’t slept in days. Is this how his parents felt? So empty and full to the brim with worry? Did they have that slimy feeling of anger deep in their chest, that made them want to use everything at their disposal to find him? Tony wants to find his _son_.

He finds himself choking on his own breath, eyes wet. It _hurts_ , knowing that DJ could be anywhere in the world, alone and scared. It tears at him in a way that is so similar, yet so different to when Edwin and Ana Jarvis both died. Tony can remember his parents’ death and the numbness it brought, like shades of colour were leeched from the world. Their deaths weren’t the void, like the Jarvis’ deaths were. DJ being gone is a void in his heart – like something has been torn from him, still tethered to him but still so far away that Tony can’t tell if there’s anything at the other end.

“ _Sir, there are two SHIELD agents requesting to talk to you._ ”

“Let them in,” Tony says hoarsely, standing and heading for the bathroom. He looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks grey and hallow. Tony cleans himself up, making sure to change his shirt before leaving the workshop, going up to meet the two SHIELD agents in his living room.

The first one he sees is blonde. He’s of average height with a black leather jacket barely hiding the rock muscle of his arms, sunglasses pushed up onto the top of his head as he looks around Tony’s mansion with a raised eyebrow. The second is a red-head – a woman who looks like she could either snap his neck or seduce him with only a single, sultry gaze. It’s kind of freaky, actually, but Tony knows SHIELD only employs the best.

“What are you doing here?” he questions. “Shouldn’t you be searching for my son?”

“This is Agent Barton and I’m Agent Romanova,” the woman says, meeting his eyes. “We’ve been assigned to locate and retrieve your son. We plan on doing so.”

“Good. Why aren’t you already?”

Agent Romanova looks him up and down. “Every avenue has to be investigated. How do we know you didn’t pay someone to get rid of your son? You haven’t been very receptive when it comes to potential children in the past, apparently.”

Her words are like a hammer to the chest. “You- what? _No!_ He’s my _son_ , I _love_ him!” Tony balls his fists up. “How _dare_ you? Get out! Get out of my house! I would _never_ hurt my son!”

Agent Romanova doesn’t move, watching him for a tense few seconds before nodding. “I believe you. Who did you first tell that you had a son? Did any have a negative reaction?”

“I…I told Happy, my driver. He thought DJ was awesome. Got Rhodey, Uncle Obie and Pepper together to tell them. Rhodey would never. He’s my brother. He was with me through some tough shit. Pepper’s got too much heart. DJ calls her Aunty Pepper. It’s weird, but adorable.”

“And Obadiah Stane?” Agent Barton questions. Tony swallows.

“He wouldn’t. He- he’s never happy with anything I do, if it’s not a new missile plan, but he’s my son. Obie wouldn’t, either. None of them would.”

“Thank-you for answering our questions.” Agent Romanova says. “Virginia Potts has already been cleared. Despite being your PA, she doesn’t have enough connections to avoid being questioned and investigated.”

“Thanks,” Tony says, feeling slightly relieved that he can trust Pepper, if no-one else. “Really, though, I doubt Rhodey had anything to do with this, or Obie.”

“We’ll look into it,” Agent Barton promises. “I don’t think I could deal if my kid went missing.”

“You’ve got a kid?” Tony latches on. “Aren’t you supposed to be a super-mysterious super-spy? How do you even have a family with your career?” Agent Barton shrugs, lip twitching slightly. Tony pouts. “Come on, I need a distraction.”

“You need to sleep,” Agent Romanova cuts in. “We’ll find your son, Mr Stark.”

“Mr Stark was my dad, call me Tony.”

Agent Romanova tilts her head up, before looking to Agent Barton. He shrugs, before looking to Tony. “We’ll get in touch with you soon, hopefully. If you find something out, give us a call,” Agent Barton says, before taking a card out of his pocket, holding it out. Delicately, Tony takes it, raising an eyebrow at the purple H A W K E Y E above the telephone number. “It’s my call-sign.”

“What’s hers?” Tony questions, pointing at Agent Romanova.

“That’s classified,” she says, before nodding sharply and leaving. Agent Barton gives a small wave before following her, tucking his hands into his pockets. Once Tony sees them go out the front doors, he speaks to JARVIS.

“Find out who they are and…and set an alarm for me to wake up. I’m going to have a nap.”

“ _Yes, Father._ ”


	3. smoothies.1.2

The room is cold. DJ wishes he had a jumper, or a blanket. He thinks of his father’s home – the shining city of Asgard, with its boiling warmth than would burn his pale skin so easily. Asgard seems so far away now, distant in his mind. The familiarity of Earth grounds him. His life before becoming DJ was so…mechanical. Simple. _Sir_ didn’t always make sense, but that was _sir. Sir_ doesn’t make sense. It’s in his code.

DJ wants to be back home. He wants to be back at day-care, playing Lego with Jason and drawing with Keira and Sam. The strange men who shout and hit him terrify him, reminding him of _Dad-Sir-Howard_ , who kicked his shell when _Sir_ introduced them to each other and of the servants in the palace, who would sneer and call him names under their breath.

“Make a missile, a bomb, something that explodes,” one forces a pen into his flesh hand. DJ thinks of all the weapons his creator has made before, knowing what they do and finding himself shrinking from the idea of making his own. He drops the pen, which is pushed back into his hand again.

“ _No,_ ” he says in Italian, finding more comfort in his creator’s mother tongue than his captors’. “ _I won’t._ ”

“What are you saying? What’s he saying?”

“ _I won’t make you designs,_ ” DJ says, throwing the pen at the man’s face. A part of him finds it funny that it hits him on the nose, up until the man slaps him across the face, sending him sprawling across the old, musty grey carpeting. The shock of the blow makes him stare at the wall for a minute, before the pain creeps in and his eyes start to water. Letting out a loud wail, DJ starts to cry, the pain in his face like nothing he’s ever felt before. Not even as a prince of Asgard had he been slapped.

“Look what you did, Joe,” another of the men says, shaking his head and coming over, picking DJ up by his prosthetic arm and putting him onto his feet, ruffling his hair. “He’s just a kid. Special, by the looks of it. Look at the pictures on this ‘ere arm. Girly boy, oi, look at me, Stark-kid,” the other man grabs his chin, forcing him to look up. “Are you special? Does all that genius fuck with your head?”

“ _No profanity!_ ” DJ yells in his face, still crying. “ _Father said no profanity!_ ”

The man rolls his eyes, before pulling him over to a corner, lifting him up and dropping him into a box with a blanket inside. DJ keeps crying, hiding his face in his knees, scared.

“ _I want my daddy!_ ”

“Get the camera, boys. Looks like we’re gonna have to deal with him after all.”

“Ricky! You _said_ we weren’t going to traffic kids again-”

* * *

A ransom from DJ’s captor comes – but not for Tony Stark.

Natasha, who has a SHIELD agent monitoring Stark’s close friends, gets notified when Obadiah Stane receives a videocassette in the post. The agent manages to retrieve the video, delivering it to her. Together, Natasha and Clint watch as a man in a balaclava using a voice distorter reports that DJ Stark refuses to build them any weapons and only speaks in Italian, at that. The man ransoms DJ to Stane at twenty million, saying that they’ll be arranging a second ransom with Tony Stark – which would include who hired them.

“Where are they? Is that an apartment?” Clint mulls over the video as Natasha replays it on their VCR player, watching again and again. She pauses on a shot of DJ Stark, who curls up inside a cardboard box. _So young, so scared,_ she thinks, recalling herself at that age. _I was handcuffed to my bed at night._ “The window. Is there a better shot?”

“Here,” Natasha hands him the remote, watching as he speeds back and forth slowly, pausing at just the right moment to see a gap of the window, looking out onto a rundown street. On the corner at the end, just in sight, is a Polish deli. “I want to get Stane,” she says.

Clint pauses. “First?”

“A ransom will be sent to Stark soon enough. We have to get Stane exposed before he pays the kidnappers. Is there a news station around here?”

“Should be,” Clint says. “You want to take the video and play it on TV, don’t you? There won’t be any misunderstanding, that way.”

“They explicitly say this video is to their employer, Obadiah Stane of Stark Industries,” Natasha says. “He’s a rich businessman, probably after control of the company. He can afford the lawyers. Stark won’t believe us outright, even if we show him this. Stark needs public support convicting him if Stane gets to the best lawyers before Stark does. He could do something stupid, otherwise.”

“Like kill the man who had his son kidnapped? Yeah, I see what you mean. We have to get this coordinated right. We’ll need more than just us on this. A team has to arrest Stane, another team has to retrieve DJ and another has to organise the broadcast.”

“What if we get the kid first?” Natasha questions. Clint tilts his head side to side.

“Could do it. Probably better to. Stane could pay the ransom any time.”

“You could get the broadcast sorted out,” Natasha says. “Or get Agent Coulson to.”

“Phil’s probably our better bet.”

“Call him,” Natasha says, getting a nod from her partner as he reaches for his satellite phone. “I’ll find the location of that apartment. We get the boy and place him in temporary protective custody. Then, we broadcast the video and arrest Stane.”

“It’s a plan. Give me five,” Clint raises his hand and after a long moment of silence, Natasha gently high-fives him, not quite sure how to. “There we go.”

“Let’s never do that again,” Natasha says, to Clint’s disappointment.

“Fist bump?”

“No.”

“Thumbs up?”

“No.”

“You just ruin everything, you know that.”

“Yes, I do,” Natasha smiles briefly, happy to watch Clint roll his eyes. “Let’s get going.”

“Aye-aye, commander. Let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

DJ first looks up when he hears the doorbell ring. The men around the room tense, raising guns.

“Lynn, get the door,” Ricky orders. The young man – Lynn – nods, hiding his pistol behind his back as he goes over to the door. DJ watches as he opens it, an awkward, gangly boy holding out a pizza.

“One Mediterranean veg pizza and three plain cheese for this address?”

Lynn glances around at the rest of his group. “Did any of you order pizza?”

“No.”

“Nah, man-”

“No, but I’m hungry.”

“Yeah,” Ricky eventually says, “That’s for us. How much, again?”

“Uh,” the pizza boy takes the receipt out from between the pizza stacks. “Forty-two dollars and eighty-”

That’s when there’s a sharp whistle through the air and three out of eight goons go down. From beside the pizza-boy, a red-haired woman appears, bringing up her gun and shooting Lynn, then Ricky. Another shot is fired, getting another one of the men. DJ jumps at every noise, watching the red-haired woman enter the apartment and shoot the remaining men, leaving only one of them not bleeding out, still, laying on the floor.

She looks to the pizza-boy, holding her finger up. “One minute. Those are for me and my partner. Stay there.” The pizza-boy nods hurriedly and DJ watches as the woman goes around each of the men, taking their guns and putting them in a big pile, rifling through their wallets until she has enough dollar notes to pay the pizza-boy. “Thanks.”

“…bye!” the pizza-boy squeaks, placing the pizzas on a side-table messily, before bolting. The woman shifts the corner of the pile, so they don’t fall. DJ looks around the room, at all the men lying dead – _they’re dead, this is what the Einherjar that hurt me looked like after Father killed them_ – and then at the single one left alive, zip-tied and groaning, having received a blow to the back of the head.

“Joe,” he identifies the man who tried to make him draw missile designs, pointing at him.

“Thank-you,” the woman says, before a man comes jogging into the apartment, breathing heavily. He’s got a big, long gun on his back and as soon as he sees the pizza boxes where the pizza-boy had left them, he opens the top one, pulling out two long, stringy slices of cheese pizza. “Ever heard of table manners?”

“Ever heard about the proper way to eat pizza?” the man questions, walking around the bodies and guns to where DJ sits in the cardboard box. He crouches down, offering a slice. DJ takes it, happy for hot food after a week and a half of pickle and tomato ketchup sandwiches. If he never eats a pickle and tomato ketchup again, it’ll be too soon. “I’m Clint, Clint Barton. Your dad is really worried about you. We’re here to take you home.”

“How do I know he sent you?” DJ questions through a mouthful of pizza. “What if you’re more kidnappers?”

“If you don’t come with us, I’ll have to wait here with you until my friend here finishes our mission,” Clint says. “The plan was to take you to a safe house for a few more days, then bring you back to your dad after the bad man is arrested.”

“Who’s the bad man?” DJ asks, after swallowing his pizza. Clint shrugs uncomfortably.

“I want to tell you, kid, but until he’s been shown as the big bad, it’s best for you not to know. I promise that if I see you again later, I’ll tell you, okay?”

“…okay,” DJ says, before eating the rest of his pizza, watching and waiting as Clint and his friend drag his kidnappers around, putting them in a line before grabbing some blankets hanging around the room, draping them over their bodies. Joe wakes up while they’re covering Ricky, swearing up a storm. DJ glares. “No profanity!”

Joe looks to DJ sharply. “No- my friends are _dead,_ you little shit-”

Clint slaps Joe and to DJ, it’s as much a surprise as a relief. _He’s been slapped too, now,_ DJ thinks, before the red-haired woman comes over to him.

“May I pick you up?”

DJ looks up at her, nodding. Unblinking, he watches her as she leans, picking him up and balances him on her waist. Briefly, DJ thinks of his friends at the day-care, Keira who thought it weird that his daddy picked him up still and Sam, who looked at Keira oddly and said that _she_ still got picked up by her parents, _what’s so wrong with it?_ The red-haired woman looks like Keira did, after Sam asked her that question – all confused and slightly scared.

“Is this weird for you?”

“…a little,” she says. “I’m Agent Romanova…you can call me Tasha.”

“Hello Tasha,” DJ greets. “My designation is _Diego Jörmungandr_ , but most people call me DJ.”

“That’s a big name,” Tasha says. “Do you like being called DJ?”

DJ thinks on her question, not noticing how she walks them out of the apartment until they’re going down a set of stairs. “I do. My friends like to give me cool nicknames, like Dude Juice.”

“…Dude Juice?” Tasha actually stops and stares at him for a few minutes. Clint eventually shows up with the pizza.

“Why have we stopped?”

“Children, we have stopped because of…children,” Tasha shakes her head, before continuing down the stairs. DJ analyses his own words, frowning.

“Is there something strange about my behaviour as a child versus behaviour of yourself as an adult?”

“Yes.”

“Oh…so my friends calling me Dude Juice is contrary to adult discipline?”

“You’re very well-spoken for a child,” Tasha says quietly as they exit the building. DJ gives a small smile.

“Thank-you.”

“You’re welcome – but now I must ask you to be quiet and hide your face in my shoulder. Pretend you are asleep.” DJ nods, laying his head down and testing his eyes by only half-shutting them, seeing through slits to watch as Clint takes his jacket off, draping it around him – hiding his prosthetic, right before he sees someone coming down the street. “What languages do you speak, Diego? Italian?”

DJ goes to correct her on his name, before changing his perspective: his father is famous. He was kidnapped because of who his father is. People know him as DJ Stark – not Diego, his legal name. DJ internally concedes, before answering her question. “I have been taught to read, write, speak and understand both Queens and American English, Italian, Greek and Mandarin. I have also taken up secret independent study with Jarvis on Spanish and French.”

“‘Secret independent study’,” Clint snorts. “God, I wish my kid called it that. Every time I come home, she’s speaking in tongues.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Tasha murmurs. “He’s a silly man, isn’t he, Diego?”

“Very silly,” DJ agrees. “Education is fun and the more skills I possess, the more life experience I will gain as the years pass and my body wearies.”

“Poetic words – a quote or an original thought?” Tasha questions, sounding vaguely intrigued.

“Original thought, inspired by-”

Clint unfortunately cuts him off. “We’ve got company.” He opens a car door and as Tasha ducks in, DJ hears a car engine. He looks behind his shoulder in time to see a limo drive past them, turning into an empty space in front of the apartment.

“Are you big enough to sit by yourself?” Tasha questions, setting him in the seat behind the driver. He doesn’t know, but uses a car-seat and tells her as such, so the red-haired woman wraps him up in Clint’s jacket, pulling it over the seatbelt that digs into his neck. Once he’s buckled in, DJ looks out the window, eyes widening at seeing Obadiah.

“It’s Uncle Obie! He’s here! Is he coming to take me home?” DJ watches as Obadiah goes into the apartment building, looking angry. DJ frowns, swallowing. “My kidnappers weren’t lying, were they? I didn’t believe them. Uncle Obie helps keep us safe. The bad man you spoke of is Obadiah Stane.”

“Damn, you’re sharp,” Clint mutters to himself. “I’d bet on you having heard of SHIELD, too.”

“The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” DJ states. “Daddy says they’re slow.”

“We are not slow,” Tasha says.

“Prove it,” DJ pushes, leaning towards her slightly, emerald eyes meeting forest green. Tasha narrows her eyes at him.

“How?”

“Get me home to my daddy before sundown and I’ll agree with you.”

“Sundown?” Clint questions. “We’ve got less than eight hours to wrap this entire mission up?”

“Deal,” Tasha says. DJ holds out his hand and she shakes it firmly. “It’s a dare.”

DJ grins, taking his hand out of hers to slap the backs of their hands and then their palms together. “It’s a deal.”

Tasha finishes it with a fist-bump. “It’s done.”

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

“In little under a decade from now, preparations will begin to hand over powers, from King to Prince,” Odin states, setting his quill down in an inkwell. Leaning back in his chair, he looks between his sons. “This prince shall be Thor.”

Thor immediately grins, laughing. “I thank you, Father!” He claps his hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Ahh, brother, our contest is now ended.”

“Not yet,” Loki says with a small roll of his eyes. “You still have ten years to make a mistake big enough to reverse the Allfather’s decision.”

“Loki speaks the truth, for once,” Odin agrees, looking at Thor with his ever-serious gaze. “This burden is not the type one receives nor bears lightly. The only reason I have not decided differently, is because of Loki’s continual rebellion and siring of bastards.”

“Neither Narvi nor Vali were bastards,” Loki cuts in, painfully.

“You eloped with the Lady Sigyn on Vanaheim,” Odin glares. “You were never married here, in your own Realm. Not one of your ilk were legitimate, no matter how you treated them. You have only recently grown into adulthood, Loki. Fatherhood has not and will not be your suit for some time.”

“Father,” Thor frowns deeply, placing a hand on Loki’s chest, as if to shield him. “Loki was a magnificent father, despite his failures in other matters. To say anything otherwise is cruel. I may be glad that I am to become King, but-”

“But nothing,” Odin says. “Leave me in the knowledge that you are to be Crowned, Thor. Your mother awaits. You are both to inform her, together, of my decision and wait for the public announcement before informing your associates – this _includes_ the Warriors Three, Thor.”

“Father-” Thor starts, before Odin waves them away, picking up his quill again and paying neither of them any attention. The brothers leave his office, walking together in silence.

Loki himself feels his guilt like a heavy weight, hanging from his neck. He thinks of his children – of Einmyria, Eisa, Vali, Narvi, Fenrir, Hela, Sleipnir and Jörmungandr. _Oh, Jörmungandr, I hope you live well with Anthony Stark._ Jörmungandr, the last of his siblings to be in bipedal form. Sleipnir, Hela and Fenrir might _live_ , but only Hela keeps a remnant of herself. _She would not know me if we stood eye to eye, Queen of Niflheim, Goddess of Death…_ at the very least, Hela looks like the Aesir. Fenrir is cursed to be a wolf until Ragnarok and Sleipnir-

Loki shudders to think of his second-eldest son, a noble, mighty, _bestial_ war-steed of the Allfather. His shapeshifting abilities – much like Fenrir’s – were used against him in the cruellest of ways. The sigil emblazoned on Loki’s chest aches, then, sending a sharp pain through his limbs, as if _daring_ him to try shifting into something else.

Thor’s hand claps on his shoulder again.

“Father was unfair, brother. You were a good father to your children,” Thor’s words both warm and burn his heart. The honesty on his brother’s lips is almost sickening to him. “When I am King, I shall not deny you your heart’s desires, brother. You may marry any you choose and be father to as many children as you wish.”

“And what if I wish not be _father_ to them?” Loki murmurs, poking the sleeping beast. Thor’s grip loosens briefly, before completely falling slack.

“I know not of what you mean, brother.”

Loki shakes his head.

 _I am the God of Lies, Thor,_ he thinks, _and lies do not escape your mouth easily._

He hurries his pace towards their mother’s chambers, leaving a silent Thor in his wake.

* * *

They tell DJ to wait in the car, hidden in the floor of the back-seat with the pizza. When he takes off his prosthetic, he fits even better. Clint tells him how to use the satellite phone, telling him not to phone the number they’d given him – Phil’s number – unless neither of them come back to check on him after an hour and not to phone _anyone_ else but Phil. Then, Natasha sabotages Stane’s limo, so no-one can make a run for it.

Together, Clint and Natasha make short work of the waiting driver and two bodyguards inside. It occurs to Natasha that Clint is really the best choice as a partner for her. They’ve sparred so much – even become _friends_ – and Natasha even _trusts_ him to have her back in a real fight.

Once the men are tied together in the back in some weird, only-carnies-and-superspies-could-figure-their-way-out maze of handcuffs, courtesy of Clint, they lie in wait for Stane and his bodyguards that went into the building by the entrance.

“Joe’s still up there.”

“He’s out for the count,” Natasha shakes her head, disagreeing with the prospect of the mercenary telling Stane what happened. They both hear a muffled shot from above. “…literally,” she finishes, feeling a strange pang of…guilt? Sadness? Natasha doesn’t know and she’s been trying to catalogue what her emotions actually are for something like five years, now. Maybe ten. She’s not quite sure – she’s pretty sure Leviathan messed with her head at some point, to make her forget something…some _one_ important.

“He was our witness,” Clint says, sounding disgruntled. “This is why you’re supposed to leave two.”

“Only in this type of situation,” Natasha half-agrees, before checking her gun as the stairs creak. Putting it back in her holster, Natasha readies her for the most likely manoeuvre the body-guards will pull, happy at their predictability when she’s able to grab one’s gun as they twist around the corner, firing into their own head.

Clint similarly gets the other’s gun, using the man as a human shield against the other two and Stane, who has a gun. _Damn. He can use it, too,_ she thinks as he fires at where Clint’s head might have been a second beforehand – instead getting a stray dog across the street, who stupidly ran towards the sound of gunfire rather than away. Holding the body up in her grip for another few seconds, Natasha uses them as a shield as she aims quickly but carefully, managing to get a shot through Stane’s thumb-joint. He lets out a yell, before Natasha dumps the body she’s holding, using the man’s gun to incapacitate the remaining body-guard as Clint hits the other in the shoulder.

“Obadiah Stane, you are under arrest in the name of SHIELD for kidnapping and accessory to murder,” she says coolly, kicking the guns away from his body-guards and knocking them out while Clint moves forwards, keeping his eyes on Stane.

“I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

“It really isn’t. Put your hands on your head and turn around. You have the right to remain silent as anything you say can be used in a Court of Law,” Clint gives Stane his Miranda Rights as Natasha separates the living from the dead, handcuffing and dragging the living to the limo. The few civilians that appear get a badge and a request to stay away from the building, before Natasha sees Clint haul Stane into the limo, not coming out again. _I’m in charge,_ she thinks, before seeing a pair of teenagers stroking the stray dog that got shot.

Feeling a twinge of guilt – _that’s guilt, I know it is_ – Natasha makes her way across the street, crouching across from the teens, checking over the dog. It’s a dirty, over-sized golden springer-doodle that might have some sort of big dog genes, that’s pretty thin but completely alive.

“He’s lucky,” she says, inspecting the burn the bullet left on the dog’s flank, making a deep red line in its thick, matted fur. “If he was turned in any other direction, he wouldn’t have survived that. Gut shots in humans are sometimes repairable, dogs…”

“Safer to put them down?” one of the teens questions. Natasha nods, before rolling her eyes as the dog whines.

“Big baby. I bet that in another life, you’re that person’s dog who lies on the sofa, always in the way of someone sitting down.” The dog whines and Natasha scratches its head, before hauling him by his neck-skin to his feet. It – he – whines again, sitting on his rump, looking up at her with a doggy pout. Natasha stands, unimpressed. “You’re fine.”

Turning away and walking across the road back to the building, Natasha finds herself glancing behind her – because the dog, perfectly fine that he is, is following her, tail wagging and eyes sparkling. Natasha gets an odd feeling of amusement and want.

“Springer-doodles are my favourite,” she murmurs, knowing where this is going. The last time she got attached to an animal, she kept it – Krikun the Maine Coon lives half the time with her and half the time with her neighbour, because of her schedule. Natasha doesn’t think she’ll have as much luck keeping this lucky boy. Peggy’s allergic to dogs.

… _lucky boy. Damn._ Natasha sighs, before patting her thigh. “Come on, Lucky. I hope Clint and Laura don’t mind looking after you for me.” Lucky woofs before joining her at her side, panting happily. The Black Widow shakes her head. “Completely fine.”

* * *

Natasha finds her way back to the car with DJ in it soon. Upon seeing Lucky, DJ freezes a bit, but quickly makes friends with the dog, sharing some pizza with him and patting him intermittently. Keeping an eye on them both in the backseat floor, Natasha uses the satellite phone to call Coulson.

“ _Coulson._ ”

“That video we gave you needs to be copied and put on air before sunset.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“SHIELD’s reputation depends on it,” Natasha replies. There’s a long pause, before Coulson replies with a deep sigh.

“ _Who made a bet with Barton?_ ”

“No-one. DJ Stark dared me to prove SHIELD isn’t slow.”

“ _We’re not slow._ ”

“I’m going to prove that by having him home to his father, safe, the mission wrapped up, all before sunset.”

“ _One day, I am going to be running a mental comparison on who’s worth more paperwork: you, or Barton?_ ”

“Thank-you, sir. I work to please.”

Another sigh. “ _I’ll get it done. That bet is off the record, however, do you hear me? Time is of the essence in this matter. It’s not about SHIELD’s reputation._ ”

“Of course, sir. Hanging up now, sir.”

“ _Get on with it,_ ” Coulson orders, before hanging up. Natasha calls another SHIELD number after that, asking for an emergency clean-up crew and a prisoners van. Then, she calls Tony Stark to tell him the events of the day.

The sound he makes when she tells him that Obadiah Stane is responsible is far outweighed in Natasha’s mind, by the happy breath of relief that his son is safe.

* * *

DJ is off-centre.

At first, Tony thinks it’s because of his kidnapping and Obadiah’s betrayal – but when he brings it up, DJ says it isn’t about his kidnapping or about Uncle Obie. Tony _doesn’t_ believe him for exactly six seconds, because _he,_ Tony Stark, is most definitely traumatised by Obadiah’s betrayal. Then Tony believes him, because DJ was never that close to Obadiah and hasn’t shown any signs of PTSD or anxiety.

JARVIS says DJ has been searching up pictures of puppies.

“Do you want a pet?” Tony questions awkwardly when they’re working on their buddy-project. DJ freezes. “You want a pet, don’t you? I don’t do animals, DJ.”

“I…want Lucky, Tasha’s dog,” DJ eventually says. “He ate all the pizza.”

“You’ve told me about him,” Tony recognises the name and the story – DJ had told him so many times already, Tony feels like he knows the dog that Agent Romanova picked up off the street intimately. “So, you want to see him?” DJ nods, looking slightly distant and Tony wonders how he’s going to pull this off, before recalling that Agent Barton left a card.

“Jarvis, where’s that number? With Hawkeye’s number?”

“ _In the drawer to your left, Father._ ”

Tony opens the drawer, finding the card on top of everything. Picking it up, he grabs a phone, calling it. The dial tone rings for an excruciatingly long period of time, before Barton answers sleepily.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“It’s Tony,” Tony greets, twirling in his chair. “Does Romanova still have that dog?”

“ _What? Just a second._ ” There’s some crackling and Tony thinks he hears a door shut, before Barton speaks again. “ _What do you need?_ ”

“Visitation rights to that dog of Romanova’s. DJ’s _attached_.”

“ _You’ll have to ask Tasha. Just a minute, she’s in the guest room, probably awake. Or she might be trying and failing to speak to Dais in Russian._ ” Barton meanders through what must be his house, murmuring shit about his kid knowing too many languages, before calling out to Romanova. “ _Natasha, Tony Stark on the phone for you. Don’t know why he wants to talk at two in the morning._ ”

“It’s DJ’s late workshop night,” Tony answers. “He’s upset about the dog.”

“ _I hate to break it to you, but it’s morning, now. Kid should be asleep and so should you,_ ” Barton says, before passing the phone to Romanova.

“ _What do you want, Mr Stark?_ ”

“Still got that dog?”

“ _Yes. You can’t have him._ ”

Tony makes a fake sound of disgust. “No. _No._ No animals allowed in this house. They’re dirty and leave nasty surprises. DJ just wants to see your dog, _Tasha_. I think I’ve heard more about Lucky than about DJ’s human friends.”

“ _He wants to see my dog._ ”

“Yes.”

“ _That’s…all he wants?_ ” She actually sounds confused, Tony notes amusedly. “ _Lucky’s living with Clint’s wife. It’s a bit far from Malibu._ ”

“Let me worry about that. We can come to you.”

“ _No,_ ” she says sharply. “ _That’s not happening._ ”

“Can’t we work something out, here? I’m just trying to make my son happy.”

“… _what’s this number? I’ll have to call you back._ ”

“Thank-you,” Tony says, before giving her the number. They exchange short formalities before hanging up on each other. Tony turns to DJ, grinning. “I’ve got this in hand, DJ, don’t worry. Daddy’s got it.”

* * *

Daisy Barton’s twelfth birthday is small, but strangely open. A dozen of her classmates going into year nine with her are running around playing with Daisy’s nerf guns and honestly, it’s a bizarre experience to have more people than just her family and injured and recovering agents. Daisy’s having fun, though, which is the good part.

Hiding on the porch with her nerf gun, Daisy nearly gets a boy sitting down with Lucky, before realising he doesn’t have a red or blue scarf on, denoting his team. Daisy then abruptly realises that he is totally unfamiliar to her.

“Who are you?” she questions. He glances up at her, pausing in stroking Lucky. She raises her nerf gun. “Answer the question.”

“I’m DJ. I’m here to see Lucky. My dad dropped me off half-way through the party. Laura invited me inside, but it’s…very loud and an unfamiliar environment.”

Daisy stares at him for a long few seconds, before lowering her gun. “Dad mentioned you, I think. I was distracted. Lucky’s Aunt Tasha’s, you know.”

DJ nods. “I know.” Daisy hears Adelaide calling out victory for the blues and grumbles, tugging at her red scarf. _They won’t miss me for a minute,_ Daisy thinks, before going over to join DJ on the porch, scratching Lucky’s belly.

“He likes pizza,” DJ offers. Daisy scowls.

“I know. He steals enough of it when we actually get it. How old are you?”

“Eight. You?”

“Twelve. This is my party. When’s your ninth birthday?”

“I don’t know,” DJ frowns briefly. “I think…November. Late November. Something like the twenty-third.”

“Oh. Cool.” Daisy strokes Lucky’s fur, happy he’s so lazy, unlike their other dogs – Lincoln and Eureka are sprinters, running around all the time and getting dusty. Lucky gets to stay inside, unlike Lincoln and Eureka. They have to stay in the barn. Lucky’s so lazy and clean, in comparison, that her mother – Laura – doesn’t even mind when he joins Daisy at night, laying on top of her feet.

Daisy looks at DJ every so often as they sit together, cataloguing his features. Pretty quickly, she realises something’s wrong about his arm. It’s shaped wrong under his jumper and his hands don’t match – one of them is _orange._

“Have you got a fake arm?” Daisy questions, bracing herself for an angry or upset reply. Thankfully, however, DJ simply nods.

“I wasn’t born with two. Would you like to see?”

Daisy hesitates, “If it’s okay…”

DJ shrugs a little, before taking off his jumper, folding it in his lap before taking his fake arm out of his shirt, bunching up the fabric by his neck. Daisy stares at his orange arm, decorated with pictures of green grass and little white and pink daisies with yellow insides.

“It’s pretty,” she says, before looking at where it joins with his shoulder. It’s got _wires into him,_ she realises, gasping, reaching up to poke the casing around his shoulder, the arm connecting into it, clasps around the edge with wires in each of them, connecting to other wires in the casing. “Is it just like having another arm? Can you feel it?”

“I’m aware of it. It’s strange, having it, sometimes. I’ve only had one arm up until I became DJ Stark. I know where it is and I’ve gotten used to it. I take it off a lot.”

“Can I see?” DJ pauses for a few seconds and Daisy backtracks. “Sorry. That was weird.”

“No, it’s not weird. My friends have asked, too. I did a show and tell,” DJ says, before reaching up, pressing a button that makes his arm go limp, before he presses the clasps. They detach, the wires disconnecting. Very quickly, he’s holding his fake arm in his hand and Daisy spots a faint blue light coming from where it attached before, looking odd against the orange plastic coating.

“Woah…” Daisy says, before abruptly giggling. “That’s so _cool!_ What’s the blue light?”

DJ smiles at her, revealing a gap in his front teeth. “Thank-you! My dad miniaturised my grandfather’s original arc reactor so my arm doesn’t have to be charged all the time. I think the design of the arm itself is _amazing_ and we – my dad and I – made bigger versions for war veterans that are a simpler and don’t need an arc reactor to power them.”

“ _Woah,”_ Daisy says again, before peering closer, looking inside the arm where it usually connects with DJ’s shoulder. “So it’s a real robot arm then?”

“It’s a prosthetic, but there are robotic elements to its design that you won’t see in non-Stark prosthetics-”

* * *

Butterfingers comes to life with a camera instead of a claw.

“Hello,” DJ says softly, waving gently. Tony lets him greet his brother, speaking to him and explaining what he is and who DJ, JARVIS and Tony are, while also watching him – both his coding, running in front of him on the desktop and his movements. So far, he hasn’t moved much, just focused his camera in on DJ.

“J,” Tony murmurs, hoping JARVIS can pick up his voice at this level – he really needs to upgrade his systems – as he eyes Butterfingers’ code. There’s a couple of blips. Butterfingers is figuring out his own systems, saving, deleting, copying, restoring and transferring between different databanks. Theoretically, this is what DUM-E and JARVIS did, but before now, Tony never had the technology to _see_ it happening. “Is this normal?”

“ _He’s doing better than we did, Father. The evolution of computer science is a good thing, it seems, when it comes to Butterfingers._ ”

“Right, good,” Tony looks away from the coding to the physical form of Butterfingers, watching as DJ tells him about the workshop. “Hey, boys.” DJ pauses, looking over at him. Butterfingers takes a few seconds before moving his camera in Tony’s direction. “Butterfingers, are you connected to Jarvis?”

Butterfingers’ camera adjusts once, then a positive beep comes from his server. Tony smiles. “I’m a genius. Well done, kiddo.”

“ _Father, Butterfingers is expressing some confusion over the many designations he is being forced to answer to._ ”

“It’ll make you learn. Part of my personality is calling people by…other designations. Like, I call DJ, DJ, because he’s also Diego-Jörmungandr, Dummy and Jörmungandr.” Tony twirls in his chair again, looking back to the screen to see Butterfingers’ coding. A series of quick beeps come from Butterfingers’, who rolls forwards so very, very slowly.

“ _Butterfingers is distressed, Father. I suspect seeing his code is the robotic equivalent of seeing himself during open-heart surgery._ ”

“Got it, distressing material. He seems pretty fine. I’ll take another look later, when Butterfingers is charging. Shut it down, Jarvis.” The coding disappears, the screen going dark. Butterfingers’ beeping stops.

“Don’t worry about it,” DJ gets off his chair, reaching over to be in his brother’s line of sight. Sometimes, Tony wonders at his own thoughts and behaviours, rather than the bots’. He actually _calls_ them all ‘brothers’ in his head. He thinks of them as _people._

 _I’m changing my behaviour accordingly,_ Tony wonders at himself. _I wonder if it’s just my bots though. What if someone else makes a working AI that learns and communicates? Will I treat them like I treat other beings- god, **beings**. Will I treat them like I treat other beings?_

“Daddy, can Butterfingers get an arc reactor too?”

Tony blinks out of his brain. “Sure. Might as well spare the best for my kids. J, bring up the super-secret mini arc reactor design so I can modify it for Butterfingers’ circuits. It won’t take me too long, I don’t think – I can take out Butterfingers’ charging port, if we do this. More space.”

“ _There would be approximately four point two inches of space over a square of one foot and eight inches,_ ” JARVIS states.

“That’s loads. Butterfingers, anything else you want? Is there anything up with your servers I need to repair?”

Butterfingers’ beeps and DJ shakes his head. “No. Daddy won’t change anything you don’t want changed.”

Tony points at Butterfingers. “Definitely. Ditto. I’m never going to mess with you without your permission, ever, unless it’s to save you from being completely lost slash being destroyed slash etcetera reasons that Jarvis can detail in better succession than I can. You’re a person. You live and grow as you experience the world, just like any other being. Got that? Gimme a nice, positive beep, if you do.”

Queue a happy, positive beep and a slow trundle towards Tony, Butterfingers’ camera getting close enough to Tony’s face that he’s sure it’s the only thing Butterfingers can see.

“ _Butterfingers sends appreciative thanks, Father._ ”

“Good,” Tony says, reaching up to pat the camera gently, unable to help himself. Butterfingers might not be able to comprehend the pat – maybe something for the upgrade, actually, add a touch-sensitive pad somewhere that can be easily reached – but Tony can’t resist a small tactile comfort. Almost immediately afterwards, DJ launches himself into his lap, arms wrapping around his neck in a hug.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you as well, DJ,” Tony says, before hugging him back tightly. He hears a soft _snip_ and looks to Butterfingers, who has moved his camera back. Tony takes a second to remember that he made a separate photos-only hard-drive for Butterfingers to keep electronic photos in, that can be printed off via JARVIS if he wants. It makes him proud to know that Butterfingers’ first photo is of Tony and DJ, together, happy.


	4. flowers.1.2

The familiar sound of a straw sucking up dregs permeates the near-silence of Daisy’s apartment. She ignores it, fingers clicking away on her keyboard.

“Why have you gone dark, again?” DJ questions as he throws his smoothie into her bin, the paper cup flying with pin-precision. “Because, I mean, I get moving out and attending college in New York – New York’s basically the world, in a city sized at seven hundred and eighty-nine kilometres squared – but not talking to your family and going…dark, now that’s just weird.”

“An agent came to stay with us. I saw his file.”

“You see everyone’s file.”

“No, someone was off about it,” Daisy shakes her head, pushing her laptop onto the couch beside her. Looking to DJ where he stands against the wall by her front door, Daisy wonders why, out of all the people she knows, _he_ is her best friend.

He fiddles with his shirt-sleeves as he waits for her to continue speaking, green oxford shirt pressed and ironed to perfection, all his buttons done up. Daisy compares herself in faded purple leggings, a black tank top and over-sized black SHIELD hoodie she stole from her dad, eyeing DJ’s skin-tight jeans and running trainers…his face is like stone, but it’s his hair that gives him away. The parting isn’t perfect and his usually perfectly-combed hair has been put back into place without a brush, stray strands of brown escaping from styled confinement.

“…just like there’s something off with you,” she finishes, after a long few moments.

“There’s nothing off with me,” DJ disagrees as Daisy looks at him critically. DJ stays completely still as she does so, one of his habits that no-one in her family really understood – people fidget, it’s a _thing._ Everything that DJ Stark does is learned, copied – _mimicked,_ as her mamochka says. No small movements he makes are natural – or they weren’t, until he assimilated them, at least. Playing with his cuffs is something Daisy has always done. DJ copied her and now, it’s stuck with him.

Eventually, Daisy figures it out. “You told Tony, didn’t you?” _That would explain the hair. Tony loves to ruffle it up when he’s feeling proud of DJ._

DJ immediately loses the stone expression, smiling and shaking his head. “It was going to be a surprise.”

“It’s not every day the sixteen year old genius who could have been in MIT at twelve decides he wants to go into the food industry rather than aim for a ‘harder’ subject,” Daisy acts out the quote marks in the air, smiling. “Where are you going?”

“Dad’s trying to score me a place in the Cordon Bleu, but I don’t really want to go there. I’ve already sent in an application to a Manhattan culinary school. Jarvis helped me.”

“That’s awesome,” Daisy says, before DJ turns the conversation back to their original topic.

“What was in the agent’s file?”

Daisy glares lightly, before rolling her eyes and leaning back against the couch cushions. “He was in juvie for arson and somehow got sprung, even though his parents were pressing charges. He was admitted to the SHIELD Operations Academy five years later, with no record whatsoever of those five years. That’s not normal. So, I dug deeper. Apparently, the person who sprung him, trained him – but I’m serious about this being _so_ off. All three of my parents are SHIELD agents, all recruited in different ways-”

“You know how SHIELD works,” DJ finishes, getting an agreeing nod.

“I used to help my mom do paperwork all the time.”

“By that, do you mean putting stickers on their reports?”

“I- no, _no…_ ” Daisy crosses her arms. “It was only a couple of times. Maria thought it was hilarious!”

“Maria,” DJ pauses. “Isn’t that…you’re back in contact with your foster-mother?”

“We started talking again when I was ten and she came over to borrow mom’s admin skills,” Daisy shrugs. “She’s like…my fun aunt who I helped do reports before I left. But my mom, as well. I call her Maria to her face, but otherwise-”

“ _How_ did I not already know that? Wait, so when you said you helped your mother do paperwork-”

“I mean both of them. Laura and Maria – and we agreed to keep it to ourselves that we were talking again.”

“Your life is confusing. How can you say _both_ when you also have a mamochka?”

“She’s my mamochka. Natasha said for me to use Russian with her from the start. My mom – Maria, I mean – said I could call her _maman_ if I liked, because she’s Canadian and Laura said I can call her _madre_ , but apart from when I’m with them all at the same time, it’s not stuck.” Daisy says, before brushing it all off, focusing on their main discussion. “Anyway. The guy’s training didn’t make sense and was just in general, weird. I dug a bit deeper and things started to pop up about some of his missions and his recruiting officer’s other subordinates’ missions that made me squirm.”

DJ moves over, coming to sit beside her, where her laptop isn’t. “Is it just this recruiting officer?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. So far, it’s not everywhere in SHIELD, but…some places. There’s a lot of fucked up stuff going on around the world, DJ and some of this stuff…some of it is SHIELD. They’re the bad guys, sometimes. Most of it is weird and whacky retrieval – the most dangerous either get put in this prison called the Fridge, or a device called the Slingshot.”

Daisy picks her laptop up again as it beeps. “I’ve got incoming.” She starts to type rapidly, DJ raising an eyebrow at the stuff she’s pulling up.

“Trojan horse? A classic…”

“Oh yeah. You’d think they’d be a bit more careful with their own employees’ mail. I know about three dozen emails off the top of my head from agents I’ve met before, or seen the files of… I’m looking into archives, mostly. Records. I don’t really know what to look for. I mean, I found a hidden frequency, but SHIELD does so much – it’s actually one of the things I’m most confused about. There’s not anything on it, anywhere, at any point in time that I can find. It’s _in_ SHIELD, but it wasn’t _made_ by SHIELD.”

“You’re twenty, with little to no life experience in counter-terrorism,” DJ says in a semi-soothing tone. “You say there’s something wrong in SHIELD. I believe you. Going dark is a safety measure, then?”

“Of a sort. There’s so many places a hack can come from in New York. If someone tries to pinpoint me, I might have to make a run for it.”

“You can come to the Manhattan mansion any time,” DJ offers, taking out his wallet. He looks through it, eventually handing Daisy a plain black card with a blue _Stark Industries_ logo on it. “That’ll get you through the front gate. The spare key is under the freaky garden gnome.”

Daisy studies the card before tucking it in her pocket. “Thanks – and was that an adjective? I didn’t realise you knew they existed.”

“The gnome is strange,” DJ says simply, before looking to his watch. “I have to go. I’ll text you if I’m not busy.”

“See you round, Stark.”

“Miss Barton,” DJ replies, saluting her in a way that vividly reminds Daisy of his dad, before he leaves her apartment. Feeling the light weight of the card in her pocket, Daisy lets him go without another word, getting back to her hacking.

…however, something about what he said makes her wonder. _Little to no life experience in counter-terrorism._ As if by fate, a report she opens up is on a hacker-group that’s been around for a few years now – a group called _the Rising Tide_.

“Huh,” Daisy says, before searching them up. _Maybe they can help me figure this all out._ She’s a talented hacker-type, but she’s a _novice_ talented hacker-type. This is extracurricular work for her, to be fair – she’s supposed to be studying for her languages and political science classes.

_I’ll study later. If SHIELD is corrupted, the world is in danger – and that? That is so much more important than a paper._

* * *

Daisy looks up the Rising Tide and finds them in less than a day, on a darknet forum chatting away about the right to know what’s going on in the world. For a while, she just scrolls, getting a feel for their members and ideals before her computer notifies her of a minor cyber-attack – _after_ , of course, a messaging system pops into existence on her screen.

**_What do you think of us?_ **

It startles Daisy briefly, prompting her to reach over to her coffee table and grab her black tape. Tearing a strip off, she covers her camera.

**_Clever. Should have done it before you came onto the darknet, though. You never know who’s watching._ **

**I thought you were about freedom to know everything?** Daisy finally replies.

 ** _You’re right_** **,** they send, **_but I think you’re being a bit vague in your explanation. The Rising Tide is about revealing the truth and uncovering the lies. We don’t want a complete violation of privacy for everyone on the planet. We just want to know about things that could harm us. Knowledge is power. What do you think?_**

 **I think there’s something wrong inside of SHIELD** , Daisy states boldly, being completely honest. The other hacker doesn’t respond for some time – but then another person appears on the messaging system.

**_Hi. I’m Jack. That was my friend, Miles, before. All pseudonyms, before you ask. I’m the Rising Tide’s SHIELD expert. May I enquire as to what you’re referring to?_ **

**I’m talking about the inconsistencies,** Daisy types quickly, **like people disappearing from systems when they should be documented. As prisoners. As anything. Arrest warrants that were printed, typed and signed aren’t on the electronic archives. I’ve been doing some of my own digging, if you couldn’t tell.**

 ** _I can tell._** Jack types. **_Are you looking to joining us?_**

**Maybe. Depends.**

**_On what?_ **

Daisy licks her lips, before typing out the frequency number that she has memorised. She hesitates to send it, but she draws up her courage. Even if she has nothing to do with the Rising Tide after today, they _are_ trying to do a good thing. SHIELD is getting weird and the frequency worries her. Not even Maria knew what the frequency was when Daisy asked and she was – _is_ – the Director’s right hand.

She presses enter, then types: **Find out what this is. Compile a document. If it endangers lives, think over it carefully. It exists within SHIELD, but it _isn’t SHIELD._** Then Daisy logs off the darknet, shutting down her laptop and taking it apart on the floor, bit by bit. Everything from the processor to the hard-drive gets turned into pieces, the most dangerous of which she then smashes with a hammer.

 _What have I done?_ Daisy thinks as she clears it all up. _What if I get people killed? What the hell have I done?_

* * *

Nothing happens for months. Daisy stays off the darknet – stays away from the Rising Tide – and keeps her head down. She goes to college, goes home to Iowa every couple of weekends to see her family – which is _so weird_ because _Laura’s pregnant_ – and spends time with DJ.

“I’m loving my course,” he beams at her when they meet for smoothies. “I’m going to open my own restaurant one day, you’ll see.”

“I hear you,” Daisy sips her beverage, glancing to her left when she sees someone snap a photo. “You’ve been discovered, Diego.”

“Oh, tell them to fuck off,” DJ immediately mutters, mood rapidly turning sour. He lays his head on the table, sighing. Daisy pats his shoulder before draping her scarf over his bionic hand. “Thank-you,” he says, voice muffled due to the table in front of his face.

“We’re besties. Besties look out for one another,” Daisy says, before flipping the photographer off without looking at them. “Now-”

“DJ Stark!” they call out, only coming closer. _Crap,_ she immediately thinks, realising they were waiting for confirmation.  “DJ, have you heard about what happened in Afghanistan only a few hours ago?”

“Afghanistan?” DJ sits up, alert. Daisy furrows her brow. “Dais, Dad is out there, showing off the Jericho.”

 _Jericho?_ Daisy’s eyes widen, looking to the reporter. “What happened?”

“Tony Stark was attacked while travelling in a convoy through Afghanistan, after the Jericho missile demonstration,” the photographer – _reporter_ – says, sounding suitably sober. “He was declared missing less than an hour ago.”

“Oh my god,” Daisy mutters, getting up as DJ does, barely remembering to grab her scarf as she follows his stalking form out of the café. “DJ-” she starts, only to stop dead beside him as the skyscrapers around them flicker, all the advertisements for movies, musicals and hair-care products disappear, to be replaced with giant red logos of a tentacled skull in a circle. “Hydra. Oh my god, that’s _Hydra._ ”

“What in the world is going on?” DJ questions, half-astonished and half-angry. “What in the _world-_ ”

* * *

It comes out on the news that the Rising Tide have exposed Hydra – first to SHIELD itself and then to the public, right after Hydra wins. Daisy can only guess as to how they found out. Hiding within SHIELD from near the beginning of its conception, hundreds of SHIELD agents have already been captured, if not killed by Hydra agents who were recruited both before and after becoming SHIELD agents themselves. Director Fury is on the run and the World Security Council is divided.

A speaker for Hydra – who jacks American airwaves to get their message out – says that their hostages, however, are the least of everyone’s worries.

“ _We have the Merchant of Death and he will build us weapons beyond your wildest dreams._ ”

Happy gets both DJ and Daisy to the safety of the closest Stark property, the Manhattan mansion that Tony had moved out of years ago and that DJ had claimed as his own just this year. Pepper turns out to be abroad still, in Afghanistan. Rhodey, too – he was apparently heading the search for Tony, up until the Hydra emergence, causing a group of higher-ranked officials to take a hold of his mission.

Daisy has to hold DJ tightly as he cries, JARVIS above them serving empty platitudes while the majority of his servers focus on trying to locate their father.

At some point over the next week of being holed up in the mansion, Natasha shows up, somehow getting past security to knock on the front door. Happy just about shoots her, until she says she’s here to see if her daughter is okay.

“Mamochka,” Daisy practically runs to her side, wrapping her arms around her. “Mamochka, is Dad okay? Madre? Mamam?”

“They’re all fine,” Natasha soothes her worries with a calm voice, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears. “We’re taking care of it. Director Fury has organised his most trusted and Coulson invited us to join him, provided we weren’t Hydra. We aren’t, so we joined him. I don’t have long – Coulson’s outside, waiting for me. Stay where it’s safe and don’t go out in public alone. Don’t go to college. As soon as Hydra gets down past _A_ to _B_ , Clint’s next.”

“We’re next,” Daisy translates, nodding. “DJ and I need to go off the grid.”

“If DJ goes missing, there’ll be a hunt. He’s too well-known, too much potential leverage. Nothing about his disappearance would be left to chance.” Natasha disagrees, holding her face tightly. “Hydra is in charge, right now. They’ll come for you soon. Laura’s already moved and made up a new base of operations. Daisy, you need to go _completely dark._ Remember our deal. Only I should know the full truth, once you do it.”

For a moment, Daisy doesn’t understand – but then she does, because she talked to her mamochka about this before. _Remember our deal._

“No. I don’t want to,” she shakes her head, refusing.

“Come back to us when it’s safe and only when it’s safe,” Natasha orders, ignoring her words as Daisy holds onto her upper arms tightly, eyes burning. “Five years, Daisy.”

“Mamochka, _please_ ,” Daisy pleads, but Natasha only presses a kiss to her forehead and pulls away, leaving. Daisy puts a hand over her mouth, shaking her head, but knowing that she has already agreed to this – already made a pact with her mamochka to do it when ordered.

“Daisy?” DJ questions tentatively. “What do you have to do? What did she mean: five years?”

Daisy shakes her head, already feeling numb, her heart a shattered glass. She goes to her friend, wrapping her arms around him tightly, before moving to hug Happy, too.

“Thank-you for everything,” she says, half choking. “But I have to go. I’m so sorry, but I have to go now.” Daisy ignores their questions, leaving them and getting supplies from around the mansion. She takes the bare minimum, yet as much as she can carry. Clothes, blankets, lighters, money from the stashes literally _everywhere_ , a few bottles of alcohol for her to drown her sorrows in and other things that she’ll need.

“Where are you going?” DJ demands, grabbing her for the first time ever, in all their time together. Daisy finds herself stuck, his prosthetic hand clutching her wrist. She looks into his eyes, noting with bitter surprise that she’s taller than him. _Short, like his dad._

“I have to go. I’m not going to see you again, DJ – not for a long time and for that, I’m so sorry; but I have to go.”

Daisy tugs gently at his grip and he lets her go sharply, giving her the chance to walk away, using the secret tunnel leading out under the grounds to a code-locked door. Knowing the codes from Happy, for emergencies, Daisy leaves, eventually finding her way to the well-walked streets of Brooklyn. Finding an electronics shop, she goes in and buys three cheap laptops, along with all the tech she knows she needs.

 _Never have I been so glad that DJ was my friend,_ Daisy thinks, making different plans in her head before finally settling on one she likes.

She buys a van using hard cash. It’s plain, green and has a decent amount of space in the back. Over the next week, Daisy works hard, learning more about hacking then than she’s ever learned in an accumulative month. _Novice, talented hacker-type, my ass,_ she thinks. _I’m amazing._

Two weeks after leaving the Manhattan mansion, Daisy finally puts Natasha’s plan into action and fakes her death – adding her name to the list of bodies that Hydra agents had felled, manipulating an autopsy report to mark an unidentifiable, unidentified body as her own. As of May twenty-third, two thousand and eight, Daisy Barton is dead.

“Now…now, it’s time to go _dark._ ”

* * *

In retrospect, maybe she should have set up a new identity for herself. It would have gotten her new plates faster, for instance, when her van was caught out as belonging to a dead girl. To be honest, the blue paint-job her van gets afterwards when she runs is pretty sweet.

On the darknet, people know her as _Skye._ She tries not to tell anyone it’s a pun on Skynet, because, well…Skye, of the dark- _net._ Skye-net. _Skynet._

Daisy survives, though. Most of her money is hard cash and she sets up temporary bank accounts for the payment she gets for doing online work. The Rising Tide folk become her tentative ally. Jack becomes somewhat of an adversary of hers, actually. He doesn’t like how she keeps her methods on hacking SHIELD to herself. Miles is fun, though – and pseudonym, her ass. Miles Lydon is his real name. He’s cocky, smarmy, greedy and a _brilliant_ mentor. He teaches Daisy loads of things and guides her on the darknet, telling her which forums have legit-enough work for ID-less, genius hacker-types like her.

She genuinely enjoys working like she does, however. It comes as a slight surprise, but really…Daisy feels at home. Typing away on her keyboard for hours on end, working code and occasionally getting in with the Rising Tide for a Big Hack…

The only thing she misses from her old life is the people. She misses her friends – she misses all of her parents. She misses that she’s going to miss the birth of her sibling; that she’s not going to know their name or get to know them until they’re already going to kindergarten. Daisy doesn’t find herself yearning to be Daisy Barton again, but she _does_ find herself wondering what the friends and family of Daisy Barton are doing.

_Do they miss me?_

_Have they had a funeral for me, for my poor, unidentifiable body?_

_Will Mamochka ever tell them?_

_Is Madre’s baby healthy?_

_Will they forgive me, when I come back to them?_

One of the only things she allows herself to celebrate is Tony Stark’s return. The military find him three months after his original capture, after he’s somehow escaped the Ten Rings, a terrorist group hired by Hydra to capture and extort plans from him. He comes back in a blaze of blue light – the _Iron Man_ a vigilante searching for Hydra scum that Daisy _knows_ is Tony, because that is an _arc reactor_ in his chest, that glows in the Iron Man suit and makes the faintest of electro light through his suits. Daisy worries what that means, when she isn’t applauding his work in tracking down Hydra goons.

By his side when he returns, are two men.

 _The doctor who saved my life after they brought me in, Doctor Ho Yinsen and an assassin,_ Tony says to the camera, _who escaped Hydra after some pretty serious brainwashing. He’s pretty old, actually. Nazi super-serum slowed his aging down. I’d like to reintroduce Bucky Barnes to the world – and if the American Military don’t mind, I think you owe him some backpay._

It makes Daisy laugh and squeal. Laugh, because it is _so_ Tony Stark to bring up Barnes’ backpay; squeal, because _holy god it’s a Howling Commando._ Out of every _#squad_ from history the Commandos were her favourite. Captain America, with his best friend Bucky by his side, the Commando Sniper…her dad once said he should arrange a meeting between her and Phil Coulson, one man that, strangely enough, Daisy has never met, of her parents’ SHIELD friends. Phil is a big Captain America fan, apparently.

It’s things like that – memories of conversations, of plans and goals that aren’t to be anymore – that prompts Daisy to distract herself. She drives all over America, going to see as many places as she can think of, travelling. She avoids Iowa, even though her mamochka said Laura left the farmhouse and she avoids Sacramento, where Laura’s family live and whom she visited once a year for nearly fifteen years.

Eventually, Daisy makes herself a new identity, just so she can get a passport to cross borders. _Samantha Zhou_ is a foster-system runaway who grew up on the streets and to act the part, Daisy goes to a homeless youth scheme in Flagstaff, Arizona – because Samantha Zhou is nineteen, not twenty-two. They organise things for her, helping her get employed at a local grocery store and set up in a flat. She parks her van in an alley-way, leaving most of her belongings in there, but setting up a decent-enough living space in the apartment.

A few months afterwards, Daisy gets Samantha’s passport and banking in check, managing to buy a garage. Then, she packs up the insides of her van into boxes, hiding all the most expensive equipment in the bottom before locking her van in the garage.

Daisy wants to see the world.

Getting a flight across the Europe is both terrifying and exhilarating. She’s never been on a plane before, always drove or took a bus when leaving Iowa. It’s a long flight and she touches down in America twice before going across the Atlantic. The experience is surreal and just… _everything_ about travelling, _backpacking_ , is so much fun.

 _Three years until I get to be Daisy Barton again,_ she thinks, using a crappy laptop to keep an eye on Hydra, America in general and the Stark’s. _I’ll backpack for a year or two around Europe, do some work on the ‘net if I need cash…_ It’s only when Jack gets in contact with her and says: **_Did you hear what went down in New Mexico?_** that Daisy puts her plans on hold.

* * *

There’s a lot of political unrest in Sokovia, but strangely, it’s easy for Daisy to blend in there. There are a lot of American relief workers and she can easily join their little groups in various cities as she travels. Daisy makes a point not to stay in one place for more than a week.

New Mexico turns out to be something completely new to the Rising Tide – aliens. The fact that the newly-rebuilt SHIELD managed to contain the entire event, despite Hydra agents being everywhere, says something about their new secrecy practices. Jack is all for finding them again, but Daisy convinces him not to.

**Focus on Hydra. Right now, it’s more important to find the rats swimming for shore.**

Jack blusters and moans, but eventually agrees with her. **_I’ll find them again, later. This is just our first ET-related incident, supposedly. If there’re any more and nothing is told to the UN, I’m going to spill the tea._**

**Fine. Just don’t spill it too soon.**

Despite talking Jack down though, more and more things crop up over a short period of time – like the Incredible Hulk and the military’s chase, like a new villain called _Whiplash_ with a miniaturised arc-reactor attacking Tony Stark, like Dr Erik Selvig up and disappearing after the New Mexico incident.

Then, of course, Daisy discovers that less than ten miles from where she’s living, there’s a giant Hydra castle.

“I’ve got to do something,” she says to herself, not knowing _what_ that something should be. There’s no-one she can contact but her mamochka and her mamochka is underground – it could be months before Daisy’s message reached her and what then? What could she do? Even if SHIELD is back, quieter, yet powerful, what can they do in a foreign country? Daisy _knows_ their influence is still only in the USA at the moment.

This is Sokovia and Sokovia is in the middle of a Civil War.

 _Infiltration,_ the word creeps into her head. _You can do it. You know dozens of SHIELD espionage missions like the back of your hand._

“How?” Daisy questions herself. The answer comes to her the next day, when she’s walking home through a rubble-strewn street and a militant with a gun comes out of an alleyway. They speak in Sokovian to her and Daisy gets the gist: _put your hands up and tell me what side you’re on_.

“I just want to help,” she says, making herself speak in her best Parisian accent. The militant hesitates, before a truck comes down the street, back doors opening, calling for the volunteers sharply. Daisy watches as people – teenagers, young adults and haggard natives of the city – rush out of the alley, piling into the truck. They all look the same: war-torn but determined, a light in each of their eyes.

But the only thing Daisy sees is the halved Hydra logo stamped on the inside of the truck doors.

“Volunteer?” the militant questions. “For the good of Sokovia?”

“…for the good of Sokovia,” Daisy says, then lowers her hands. The militant motions towards the truck and she joins the other volunteers.

 _Infiltration,_ she thinks. _It’s the best chance I’ve got._

* * *

“This was a bad idea,” says her neighbour as they watch yet another person be turned into stone exploding. Daisy licks her lips, thinking the same thing as the Obelisk is gently pushed towards her with a stick. The Hydra agent nods encouragingly at her.

“For the good of Sokovia,” he says, motioning to the three examples of successful candidates, who had held the Obelisk in front of their group and made it light up gold. One is a teenager Daisy has seen around a lot in the streets, running errands for the local doctors. “Pick it up.”

“Okay,” Daisy says, trembling, knowing this could be her end. The Hydra agent nods, coming around to her side, axe rising into a ready position. He’s already saved five people from completely dying, today. “Okay.”

She leans down-

“You don’t have to do this,” her neighbour says, grabbing her shoulder. “You _don’t._ Sokovia can’t be repaired with glowing bricks.”

“But it can be with enhanced people,” the gruffest of the three examples steps forwards, coming close enough to pull them apart – throwing her neighbour into the wall. “If you can make the Obelisk glow, you can become _Inhuman._ Eva Belyakov’s Terrigen Crystals are proof enough of that we can become _powerful_ and there aren’t that many to spare. You’re lucky _._ That _glowing brick_ is the only way for you to find out if your blood-line holds Inhuman genes.”

“In-what?” Daisy questions.

“Inhuman,” the teenage boy, the errand-boy, says in a thick Sokovian accent. He tentatively steps- Daisy _bolts_ backwards, falling and tripping over her own feet as he suddenly speeds over to her, a blur of blue light. “Aliens experiment on our ancestors, to make us weapons in their wars.”

“Enough, Maximoff,” the gruff man – _an Inhuman?_ – interrupts. The boy glances at him, before picking up the Obelisk in another blur of blue, holding it out to Daisy. She looks at in slight fear, hearing _aliens_ and barely registering that the word should be associated with disbelief and disregard. The Obelisk has already killed six people in the last half an hour and reduced another five to being amputees in a country where getting a prosthetic like DJ’s – _any_ prosthetic – is a pipe dream.

_Fucking god, I hope I’m descended from Inhumans._

She takes the Obelisk.

* * *

“You’ll be poked and prodded, after,” Wanda says in a vaguely despondent voice. Daisy tugs at her shirtsleeves, nervous. The room where she’ll transform, alone except for the single other person in her group of fifteen who’s an Inhuman, is completely glass and has scientists milling around it, waiting for them to enter. A blue crystal is hanging from the ceiling in a claw, ready to drop and smash on the ground.

“Any invasive procedures I should be worried about?” Daisy jokes, thinking of…well. Hydra already thoroughly searched her, but if her dad taught her anything, it’s that fake hearing aids can work wonders when she’s in trouble. The implant in her thigh would be a bit harder to explain than _I’m deaf_ , however.

Wanda’s lip quirks. “It depends on what your power is. I can read and manipulate the minds of others, control objects with my thoughts – I am in charge of Katya Belyakov, for example. I have to make her stay in her room and talk to her psychiatrist. She is unstable – apparently, in the Inhuman community, in China, there are requirements to becoming an Inhuman. Having to keep her in check, I understand why. Katya should have been admitted into a mental institute years ago.”

Wanda looks distantly to the left at that, raising her hand a little, a thread of red light appearing. She twists her hand, making the red light pulse and strengthen before fading again. Daisy watches, fascinated.

“I was looked over differently than to my brother, Pietro. He was checked over physically, while they scanned my brain. You have met Pietro. He has super-speed.”

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees, but truthfully, she’s still a little stuck on the _mind-reading_ thing _._ Internally, she begins to slowly panic, thinking of everything that she doesn’t want Hydra to find out – like that she’s not Samantha Zhou, like that she’s got family in SHIELD, like DJ Stark is her best friend.

It’s like a switch flips. Wanda’s eyes glow red, bright and scary in their intensity as she turns her head sharply towards her, before she reaches up to Daisy’s head. All of a sudden, Daisy experiences a waterfall of memories, blocking out her vision, all centred around Tony and DJ.

_“Who are you? Answer the question.”_

_“I’m DJ. I’m here to see Lucky.”_

It’s like a skipping record, going from her twelfth birthday party to the first time Tony showed her how to code.

 _“See here?” Tony points at the keyboard, beside the_ enter _button. “That’s called the left ellipses. You can get to it by pressing shift, then the button.”_

Skip. Making orange and pineapple smoothies in her kitchen.

_The machine whirs loudly and Laura practically leaps to slam her hand over the lid, Daisy and DJ following – but none of them get there in time before bit, fat droplets escape and splatter the benchtop and her madre’s pretty top._

Skip. Visiting the Malibu mansion after road-tripping across the US during the summer.

_“It’s so big…”_

_“Wait till you see my brothers!” DJ grabs her hand, pulling her past Natasha with her broken arm and Pepper, down a spiralling staircase to a workshop. Daisy can see Tony through the glass, working on a replacement arm for DJ, who’s grown out of his old one. “Dad!”_

_Tony looks up a few seconds later, Daisy reading his lips as he speaks to the ceiling. “Turn off my music, J and let them in.” The door opens and he grins at them both. “Hey, mini-Hawkeye, how was your vacation?”_

Skip. The word _Hawkeye_ floats through her brain, questioning, not her own. The memory of Tony teaching her to code flips through again and again, before abruptly, Daisy finds herself as a small girl again, in a diner eating a burger with cheese and ketchup, but without anything else.

_“Mary. What happened to Agent Hill?”_

_“We were having chicken nuggets. Then- then something came through the window and it make the room go white. It hurt my eyes. Mommy put me in the china cabinet. When she locked it, they couldn’t get me. They were all dressed up and had guns. Mommy fought them, but they shot her in the legs. They kept punching her face and making electric hurt her. They put a fire on her shoulder. They wanted me.”_

“Stop!” Daisy chokes on her words, finally ripping herself away from Wanda, terrified. But even without Wanda’s terrible, _terrible_ influence, she remembers the encounter she described, all those years ago. The attack on her home with Maria, seeing her _mamam_ tortured just to get to her, Daisy, hidden in the bomb-proof china cabinet. “Why would you do that?

But Wanda looks to remorseful and guilt-ridden, horrified at- at what she saw, perhaps, or what she did. Daisy doesn’t know. Unfortunately, Wanda doesn’t have the chance to answer as a Hydra agent calls Daisy over to the chamber.

“Zhou, it’s time!”

Daisy glances over, then back at Wanda, who watches her with wide eyes. Daisy slips over, looking at her feet. She begrudgingly accepts being told to disrobe, crossing her arms over her chest after taking out her (fake) hearing aid. The other person – who she thinks is called Danek – coughs embarrassedly as they step into the glass box. _Tank,_ Daisy thinks, _we’re fish in a fish-tank. Inhumans in an Inhuman tank._

The door is shut and sealed. Two minutes later, the crystal is dropped. When the gas escapes and moving stone begins to encase her, Daisy looks frantically for Wanda, who comes over to the glass, raising her hand up. Daisy tries to reach for her, but the stone stops her, freezing her in place.

Wanda gives a tentative smile before it covers her eyes, bringing her darkness.

Terrigenesis itself isn’t painful, Daisy realises, just uncomfortable, like ants are crawling all over her body – like more and more ants are crawling all over her body every second. It eventually becomes so _consuming_ a feeling. She feels vibration that reaches into her, right down to the bone and more. She can feel everything solid inside her.

The implant in her leg shakes, shakes and shakes.

Then everything explodes outwards and she gasps for breath, falling to her knees. Daisy finds Wanda again, who grins toothily at her through the glass before glancing sideways an abruptly blanching. Daisy looks – and immediately wishes she hadn’t.

Danek’s skin is becoming transparent, then opaque, like it’s phasing out of existence and it’s _just_ his skin. Every so often, his transparency increases – Daisy swears she sees right through his lungs once, if not twice. Unfortunately, watching it happen makes her want to throw up – and _god, she feels sick, now._

“Ugh,” she groans, shuffling closer to the glass, leaning against it. Daisy feels like she’s vibrating out of her skin. She imagines pushing it out of her, into the glass…and the glass vibrates, before shattering, showering her and Wanda in shards of glass – and causing the leaning Daisy to topple forwards onto the other Inhuman. Their little pile-up is full of pain, glass and blood, but all Daisy can think of is the fact that _she’s naked_ and _very much on top of Wanda._

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Daisy says, whimpering slightly at the feeling of glass in one of her knees and the impact the floor brought in the first place.

“Don’t move,” someone calls out, before a heavy-booted man comes over, carefully picking Daisy up ad bringing her over to sit on the waiting gurney. Daisy flushes as the doctors immediately begin to look her over, but finds herself looking at Wanda, who’s helped up by Pietro. Her brother speeds over the glass, pulling her up and using superspeed to take out the glass in her hair.

“Sorry,” Daisy says a little louder than usual.

“It’s fine. Something to go in your file,” one of the doctors says brusquely. “Do you know your own power?”

“No,” Daisy replies honestly, glancing over at Wanda and Pietro in the corner of the room, where they talked in rushed Sokovian – the room has good acoustics and their words echo, Pietro full of brotherly concern and Wanda, exasperation. She looks to Danek in the tank briefly, recalling his full name as a doctor with a clipboard goes past, his name at the top – Danek Rosanoff. _I have to remember that for later._

Hopefully, Wanda won’t have given her up to Hydra by then and have gotten her murdered.

From the way the famed _Scarlet Witch_ keeps glancing at her, Daisy has an inkling she might be alive by the end of this.

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

Phil sighs as he signs off his last report for the evening. Life has been so hectic in recent years – it’s altogether strange and _boring_ to just be reviewing reports on the recruiting of new, former-civilians, ready to be packed off to the new SHIELD Academy.

It’s a good boring, but boring nonetheless.

“I don’t know how you can do this every day,” he says to Melinda at the desk opposite him. She doesn’t even look at him. “May. Please stop ignoring me. I know that I messed up-”

“Your love life is none of my business,” Melinda states, interrupting him. “Go out on another date with Miss Price.”

“Rosalind is nice _and_ she’s a spy from various different agencies,” Phil says. “She’s deputy head of the Hydra-Hunting Corps. I thought you would like her, May!”

Melinda meets Phil’s eyes, looking at him coldly. “Let me be straight with you, Coulson. The fact that she’s nice doesn’t mean anything; the fact that she’s a spy with no discernible original identity is worrying and her appointment as deputy head of the HHC is off. She obviously knows President Ellis in another capacity.”

“She saved his life.”

“Lots of people save the President’s life,” Melinda argues, going back to her paperwork. “I ignore you when you disappoint me. It’s not that hard.”

“What, to disappoint you? Or to ignore me?”

“One is far easier than the other. Take your pick.”

Phil pouts. “Aw, May – I didn’t realise it was so hard for you to put on the silent act.” He smiles as she rolls her eyes, before raising an eyebrow as Clint comes through the door, throwing a ball at her. She deflects it easily, looking up at the archer as he half-drapes himself over Phil’s desk.

“You’ve got to help me,” Clint pleads.

“What did you do?” Phil questions. Clint groans again, eyes shutting before Natasha comes into the office, eating a packet of dried apricots, face blank.

“He impregnated Laura again. She’s refused to do his laundry in revenge.”

“So, you want me to do what?” Phil asks, slightly bemused. “I haven’t seen Laura in person for years, but I doubt you don’t deserve to do your own laundry, considering she has to deal with both pregnancy and a- what? One year old? Even if that older kid of yours helps…out…” Phil watches as Clint immediately sobers, tensing up. He looks to Natasha, but her blank mask is still on.

_What’s wrong?_

“Daisy died in the Hydra attacks, when they were targeting families of SHIELD agents,” Clint answers his unasked question. Phil immediately stands, reaching over to put a comforting hand on Clint’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” Phil says sincerely, before seeing Melinda: frozen in place. “May? Did you know her, too?” Below his hand, Clint moves, twisting and sitting up on the desk, looking to May. Her eyes flicker between the two of them as Clint suddenly straightens.

“You.”

Melinda looks slightly lost as Clint seemingly identifies her.

“Me…” she confirms quietly. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty damn sure,” Clint breathes, voice hitching as he glances back at Phil, so _obviously_ hiding something. Phil blinks in confusion as Clint brings up his hand, pointing his thumb at Phil, looking back at Melinda. She glares slightly and Clint mumbles something vaguely unsavoury under his breath before nodding. “Right. Yeah. Daisy died, May twenty-third.”

“The twenty-third,” Melinda repeats, nodding sharply before leaving.

Quickly after, without another word, Clint and Natasha both depart and Phil is left alone in the office, confused and wondering just how Melinda knew Daisy Barton.


	5. flowers.1.3

It turns into a conspiracy, using all their Inhuman powers to help their agenda.

Daisy learns how to control her powers with Hydra’s help – her powers being able to manipulate vibrations. She can do lots of things with vibrations, as it turns out. One of her favourite parts about her power is how she can technically fly, vibrating the air under her feet. Hydra comes up with a laundry-list of things she has to try out. The only problem she has is actually controlling them without hurting herself.

“ _Microfractures_ ,” a Hydra doctor who speaks French explains the readouts from the x-ray machine. “ _Your body is a conduit for your powers and you are not strong enough._ ”

“ _I understand,_ ” Daisy replies, keeping up the idea that she’s from Paris. Probably, the only reason they haven’t caught her out yet is because they don’t have access to a database to check her credentials. “ _What are we going to do about it?_ ”

“ _I’ll get back to you,_ ” they say. A few days later, a prototype body-suit is given to her. It’s black, with silver electronic bands every couple of inches circling all the way up her body. To be quite honest, it works. The first thing Daisy does in the suit is fake losing control of her powers, bringing down a portion of the ceiling on equipment and two heavy-duty security guards in the corner of the room.

Wanda experiments more with her own powers, learning how to make her manipulation colourless, once she has control. Usually, the persons eyes go red, but as Wanda works to get control, the red in their eyes fades.

“Why don’t you tell them about me?” Daisy questions her in the rec room under her breath, worrying about potential CCTV and microphones. They’re sitting on the sofa, playing chess while Pietro plays ping-pong with himself. “You hate Tony, but I’m best friends with his son.”

Wanda tilts her head, eyes on the chessboard as she moves a rook with her powers, speaking in barely more than a murmur. “DJ Stark is innocent. You knew him from a young age. He is a gentle soul. Tony Stark stopped production of weapons, when he came back from Hydra’s captivity. They wanted him to make more.”

“Why did you join Hydra, knowing that?”

“We joined for Sokovia,” Wanda corrects her. “Our country needs peace and restitution. For many years, Pietro and I wanted to kill Tony Stark, for making the weapons that killed our parents and the bomb we had to stare at for days on end, waiting to die when we were ten. Hydra has done many things and we know that not much is good. We thank them for giving us our birth-right. We do not thank them for trying to use the man who we want dead, instead of killing him.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’ve not told them about me,” Daisy shakes her head, moving a pawn forwards. Wanda ruthlessly takes it with a knight, Daisy moving another pawn forwards after.

“Tony Stark made money off his warmongering. When it is safe for you to resurface, you will take us with you and Tony Stark _will_ help fix our country, using any means necessary. You will help us convince him and if he does not, I will use my powers to change his mind.” Wanda’s words are supplemented by her eyes going scarlet, Scary Edition™. Daisy nods shortly, before watching Wanda checkmate her king. “You are the key Sokovia’s freedom and we will help you in your endeavours, here, to save our country.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Pietro comes to their side, prompting Daisy to glance at him. “I already disabled security in here, yesterday. Cameras and microphones are broken. We can speak freely.”

“Great,” Daisy breathes a sigh of relief. “I guess we should start with a plan.”

* * *

Daisy has more ‘accidents’ and Pietro disables the electronics around the place, once, sending Hydra into disarray. Wanda takes control of Hydra guards one person at a time, sneaking into their heads without their knowledge and lying in wait. Their first problem comes when a man by the name of Strucker visits.

“This is a mess,” he sneers as he looks around. “What happened here?”

“We’ve- we’ve been having a series of electrical problems and one- one of the subjects does not have full control over their Inhuman abilities,” the head doctor, Dr Earhart, stumbles through his reply.

“Show me them,” Strucker orders, everyone in the room belonging to the compound looking to Daisy in the corner with Pietro. She crosses her arms, nervous. “Step forwards, whoever is doing the damage to my castle.”

 _His castle?_ Daisy blanches as she approaches him. Strucker looks down at her, easily intimidating her. Shrinking slightly, Daisy stays still as he reaches forwards, tugging her arm out to inspect it before moving her face side to side.

“Your power?”

“I…I control vibrations,” Daisy says, before feeling Wanda in her mind. _Strucker is at the head of this project. He has seen us before – do what he says, when he says it._ Daisy can’t help but glance up at the balcony, where Wanda stands by Katya and Eva, red swirling around Katya’s head like usual. Strucker follows her gaze.

“Do they worry you?” Strucker asks amiably.

“Eva was chosen, Katya was given and Wanda volunteered,” Daisy says, before looking back at him. Strucker nods shortly, before grabbing Dr Earhart by the collar and throwing him to the floor.

“Give me a demonstration of your powers, focused on the doctor, here.”

 _Do it,_ Wanda immediately whispers in her mind. Daisy hesitates for a second or two, the doctor’s terrified face reflecting in her eyes, before she kicks him squarely in the knee, vibrations pushing out of her foot. Earhart screams, his knee visibly coming out of alignment.

“Again,” Strucker orders. Daisy licks his lips, guessing where this is going. She kicks him again, this time in his thigh. The doctor spins on the ground, yelling in pain, her vibrations visibly moving outwards, past him to one of the gurney’s pushing it back into Danek – who phases out of existence, disappearing completely, the gurney running through him. He reappears when it passes, a few feet forwards. “You’ll be useful,” Strucker notes at him, before reaching down and pulling the doctor up onto his feet – or rather, his foot.

“What’s your name?” Strucker questions her.

“Sammy,” she says. “Sammy Zhou.”

“Sammy…Samantha?” At her nod, Strucker makes an interested noise. “Samantha. I’d like you to kill this man.”

“Now?” Daisy questions weakly. “In front of Katya?”

Strucker glances up at the girl. “She’s already seen death. Caused much of it. She has probably seen more death than you have, Samantha. Yes, now.”

Daisy swallows. “How?”

“In the most creative way you can think of,” Strucker replies. Daisy immediately shudders, but Wanda once again speaks to her. _Do as he says, Daisy._

She tentatively reaches over, hand settling over his chest. Earhart pleads with her, struggling to get away, crying in pain when Strucker kicks his bum leg. The most creative type of death she can think of… Grimacing, Daisy slowly sends vibrations through the doctor’s chest, shaking his heart out of motion. The doctor gasps in pain, scrabbling to pull her hand off, but the damage is already done when he rips himself away. He falls to the floor, trying to breathe in and failing, seizing on the cold ground. Daisy feels her knees weaken, _feeling_ the lack of vibrations coming from him. His heart isn’t beating – his pulse isn’t a continual _thud-thud-thud-thud_.

“What did you do?”

“I- I-” Daisy puts her hands over her mouth, sobbing unexpectedly. “I killed him!”

“Yes, you did,” Strucker tugs her hands away from her face. “You don’t have any combat experience, do you?” Daisy shakes her head, a strange kind of numbness taking her over. “I want you to be given some. The twins and this other Inhuman, as well. All the Inhumans on this base are to be taught hand-to-hand. Once all their first kills are established, they get trained as a team.” There’s a long, loaded silence before Strucker glares. “Well?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Sir, yes, sir-”

“Of course, Baron-”

* * *

Strucker visits periodically, after that. Daisy can’t pretend to have less control over her powers, with him watching and it sets them back. Pietro has more trouble figuring out how to blow the power supplies, but he does learn other, more annoying ways to set them back. The most destructive thing he comes up with is a fire, which sets all the paper files alight.

Unfortunately, that same fire kills Eva and hospitalises both Katya and Wanda.

Pietro mopes, guilty over his sister’s smoke-inhalation, leaving Daisy to her own devices. The rest of Hydra, used to the twins’ dependant behaviour by now, just ignore Pietro, focusing on Daisy, Danek and the five other living Inhumans on base, from before and after Daisy’s own Terrigenesis. They put them through a rigorous training routine and a diet that makes Daisy weep for junk food. The _only_ thing Daisy likes about it is how toned she’s getting.

“Literally,” she complains to Danek, “the _only_ thing I like about this is how much muscle I have. My abs are rock solid.”

Danek gives her a weary glance. “Abs out for Sokovia?”

Daisy lets out a peel of laughter at his commentary, before listening as Danek begins reciting _Ma’ariv –_ Jewish evening prayers, in other words. Daisy’s listened to Danek’s stories before, about how his grandmother, Chava, escaped Auschwitz with her husband, Yegor Rosanoff, both keeping their religion close to their hearts in the years to follow. Moving to Sokovia was their idea of starting anew.

Later that week, Wanda comes back to the dorm they were assigned the year before. A small cheer goes up when the door opens and Pietro exclaims, “Wanda is back!”

It’s almost like…like family, Daisy thinks as they all welcome Wanda back. It’s not true family, but it’s something like it. Danek phases through the bunk-beds and Maksim, who growls and playfully puts his arm around Danek’s neck as they say hi to Wanda, questioning whether she’s fully healed from inhaling so much smoke. Maksim is a ‘beast-type’, basically a humanoid cheetah – he’s the only one who can even _try_ to keep up with Pietro, in and out of the ring. His nails are sharper than knives and his teeth are like jaguar he embodies.

Sergiusz has eight arms and uses them to full effect so he can come and scoop Wanda up in a tight hug. His older sister, Hanna, sits on her bunk reading a comic, but as soon as everyone stops crowding the female Maximoff, Hanna is walking beside her, arm in arm. It’s an inside joke that Hanna gets called _Castiel,_ after the teleporting angel from _Supernatural._ Likewise, Sergiusz is called Cthulhu, because ‘he’s an eldritch abomination’.

Only Katya and Rambo, as Daisy likes to call the Inhuman with super-strength and no name, don’t get on with any of them. Part of Katya’s problem is that Wanda controls her every move and everyone is at least ten years older than her, but Rambo…he’s just _bad._ Daisy hates having to work with him.

 _I hope they come with us,_ she thinks as Wanda stops in front of her. _Not Katya or Rambo, but Danek, Maksim, Sergiusz and Hanna._

 _I agree,_ Wanda speaks to her and Daisy thinks that her voice is amazing. Immediately, a blush rises on Wanda’s cheeks, quickly copied by Daisy as she realises Wanda must have _heard_ that. _It’s fine,_ the other woman squeaks in her head, going to back away before Daisy reaches out, using her vibration skills to gently push Wanda closer to her – only to over-estimate the amount of vibrations needed to move stick-thin Wanda Maximoff. She yelps, bundling forwards into Daisy, pushing her back onto the bed.

 _Oh my god,_ Daisy thinks, unable to stop thinking about a dream she’d had while Wanda was in the infirmary, of them in this exact position, but with far less clothes on.

 _You like me like that,_ Wanda speaks to her, gasping aloud. _Daisy!_

Under her, Daisy struggles not to move about too much without it seeming overly crass, flushing from head to toe. Abruptly, however, Wanda grabs her wrists, holding her down. Daisy freezes, looking up into Wanda’s bright red eyes.

_Wanda?_

Scarlet light darkens into a far more burgundy shade, before Pietro suddenly comes whizzing over, causing Wanda to yelp as he grabs her, pulling her off of Daisy.

“No, no, no, no, _no._ ” He says, putting her down on the other side of the room as Daisy sits up, pupils dilated. “ _No seducing Samantha_ ,” he states in Sokovian.

“ _Seducing?_ ” Wanda exclaims in the same tongue – and Daisy feels faintly glad she’s fluent, now. “ _I was not_ seducing _Sammy_ -”

“ _Then what was that?_ ” Pietro motions over at Daisy, who’s speechless. “ _It’s just another thing for them to use against you, Wanda_.”

Just like that, Daisy feels horrible, the heat in her stomach turning to ice. Wanda looks over at her fearfully. Daisy hadn’t thought about Hydra – but to be fair, everything about the past few moments had been an accident.

A good accident.

 _Do you like me as well?_ Daisy questions. Wanda’s fear fades slightly, before she pulls herself out of Pietro’s grip, glaring at him.

“I don’t care,” she enunciates angrily. “We are Inhumans, all of us. We can take care of each other. If Hydra threatens our families, we can fight _back,_ Pietro. Wasn’t that why we went through with this in the first place? To fight? Hydra is in this for themselves, no matter what they say about _the good of Sokovia._ We are their weapons – we are their bombs and their missiles, being trained to fight like soldiers.”

“Wanda-”

“No, Pietro,” Wanda hisses, before stomping over to Daisy’s bunk and sitting down. Daisy swallows, before taking her hand supportively. The warmth is so unfamiliar, with having no-one close to her after- after what? Three years? Three and a half? It’s two thousand and eleven and Daisy has been living as Samantha Zhou since two thousand and nine – and god, she hasn’t really had the chance to be recently, but wasn’t she Skye, as well, for a full year before that, too?

Wanda’s hand curls around hers and her thoughts whisper in Daisy’s head.

_I will be close to you, now._

* * *

They enact a siege.

Wanda takes control of the human Hydra guards and Pietro rounds up all the weapons, ammo and explosives in the building as they tie themselves in knots in the forest on the edge of the compound. Daisy sends out a bleep to JARVIS, at first struggling to remember his personal phone number before just deciding to use DJ’s, instead, sending out another to the Hydra-Hunting Corps. Then, she goes to where the other Inhumans have gathered.

“This Hydra castle is going to be taken and run over within a couple of hours,” Daisy explains, eyes locked on Rambo. “Wanda has control of the humans. You can either come with me, or you can stay here and get arrested.”

Predictably, Rambo tries to kill her.

It’s Hanna who makes him disappear – teleporting them both thousands of feet high into the sky, then dropping him without so much as a by-your leave. She comes up to Daisy and takes her arms, pressing a kiss to her cheek with a soft goodbye in Polish, before returning to Sergiusz’s side.

“Come with us,” Hanna says to Maksim and Danek. Both Inhumans struggle on deciding, but ultimately, it’s only Maksim who leaves with the brother-sister duo. Danek is left with Daisy and they move to Katya’s room, next, the only Inhuman with her own space. Wanda is already there, struggling to control everyone at once – and it’s clear that Katya has not decided to join them and is out of her control from the way that Katya’s hands lock around Wanda’s neck.

“Hey!” Daisy yells, distracting her long enough for Wanda to push her back with a burst of red energy. She slams into her own bedroom wall and crumples, but quickly gets up with vicious eyes, smirking at them. Katya advances on them slowly, leaving Wanda on the ground, who is still trying to keep a hold of so many minds.

“We cannot let her touch us!” Danek exclaims, grabbing Daisy’s hand before phasing out. Daisy gasps as she’s encompassed by his power, before it immediately fails, Danek wheezing at – most likely – the sudden and unexpected extra-expenditure of power. Katya still advances.

 _Please, fucking god on high_ -

Daisy raises her arms and sends a tunnel of vibration at Katya, who’s barely two feet from them, slamming her onto the ground. There’s a sickening _crack_ and as her body continues to slide across the floor, she leaves a wide blood-stain. Daisy feels her stomach roil, before hearing an almighty _slam!_ Wanda jumps, concentration breaking. Daisy looks out of the window, only to see Rambo in the middle of a crater.

He isn’t getting up.

Near his body, the Hydra agents that bundled themselves into a million knots regain their heads, red wisps falling to the ground and fading. A couple roar and a few panic, shrieking.

“We’ve got to go,” Daisy says, grabbing Danek and hauling him to his feet before going to Wanda, lifting her up just as Pietro arrives, swinging his sister into his arms.

“Bombs are ready to blow. There’s a timer for five minutes, already counting down. I will get my sister to safety, then come back for you, yes? Yes.” He speeds off without waiting for confirmation and Daisy, at this moment, wants to throttle the male Maximoff.

“Let’s go,” she says to Danek, who nods before taking off, Daisy right behind him.

* * *

They leave Sokovia, trekking through Europe on foot, agreeing to lay low. The four of them are quite happy for the endurance part of Hydra’s training after they finally settle in Austria, Daisy using Samantha Zhou’s credentials to get herself enough supplies for them all to camp out.

“Not so different from our beds in the castle, eh?” Danek jokes to Daisy, when Pietro insists on sharing with Wanda instead of segregating by gender. Frankly, Daisy doesn’t mind. It’s something to share the same room with someone you Like when there are other people there, but it’s a bit different sharing a tent.

Austria is pretty nice, weather-wise, but as the months stretch on as they lay low, it starts to get colder and wetter. The tents flap in the wind and their sleeping bags can only do so much to keep them warm. Everyone tries to help out – Pietro even manages to speed-build them a log wall a few times, when they hang out near more wooded areas. Eventually, it gets a bit unbearable. Daisy books them into two separate hotel rooms in late October and each Inhuman showers for about an hour before getting dinner at the restaurant together, used to being in each other’s company.

After, Daisy is a bit hyped on energy and says she’s going to the gym. She’s the only one to go and when she returns to her room, Wanda is waiting for her in her underwear.

“Uh…I thought I was sharing with Danek?” Daisy questions.

“You were. I made Pietro agree to share with him instead,” Wanda says, unfolding her cross legs and putting the hotel leaflet on her bedside table before getting under the covers, bundling herself up. A part of Daisy – a small, lecherous part that isn’t totally mind-boggled by the fact that they’re sharing a room – wishes she’d stayed on top of the duvet longer. “I was just waiting for you to come back.”

“Right,” Daisy nods, before completely bolting, hiding in the bathroom. She stares at herself in the bathroom mirror for a few minutes, thinking about Wanda and _Wanda waiting for her dressed in only her underwear._ Does she sleep like that normally? Daisy has to wonder…

She manages to get the shower going, running the water cold enough that by the time she’s finished scrubbing off sweat and any residual dirt, her fingers are blue and her toes are numb. Daisy somehow wraps herself in a towel, leaving the cold bathroom for the warmth of the hotel room, rubbing herself down in front of the door. Only after her limbs are losing their blue tinge does she remember that it’s Wanda, not Danek – who is so aro-ace and blind to nudity, it’s not even funny anymore – who she’s sharing a room with. She looks over at her, frozen.

Wanda is still curled up in the sheets, but now she’s facing the other direction. Daisy licks her lips and thinks something she probably shouldn’t when an extra-sensitive telepath is in the room.

_I wish she would look at me._

Daisy almost wishes that her imagination would run wild, then, but all she thinks about is Wanda – Wanda, who wiggles her fingers to the flow of her powers and would never brush her hair if she didn’t have to; Wanda, who learnt it was _not okay_ to go rummaging around in other people’s heads after they became allies and Daisy wouldn’t stand for it; Wanda, who’s filled with a cold rage that never manages to be more than just hot embers and a beautiful hope that her country can be saved.

 _I think you are brave,_ she hears Wanda think, scarcely projecting at all. _I think that you have done so much out of loyalty to your family. I think you are brilliantly smart and that you are kind. You care. You told me to offer Katya a chance, even though she was never sane enough to make the right choice._

“It was the right thing to do,” Daisy replies, before getting dressed into fresh underwear and a warm shirt. Before she can get into her twin bed, however, Wanda twists, lifting her own covers.

“You’re cold,” she says, inviting her over. Daisy stares at what she can see of her for a moment, before slowly moving to join her. The covers are too big for the bed, but the perfect size for them both and Wanda shuffles Daisy closer, so she isn’t on the edge. Taking a moment to figure things out, Daisy eventually wraps her arms around the other woman, feeling awkward and slightly embarrassed as Wanda shifts so she’s half-lying on top of her. “Don’t be,” Wanda says.

“Can’t help it,” Daisy replies, heart thudding in her chest. “I like you.”

“I know,” Wanda whispers, before she uses her powers to turn the lamps off. Daisy feels how she retracts her powers, the red light sliding over her skin before it twists, wrapping around them both. “May I kiss you?”

“Ever kissed someone before?” Daisy questions nervously in reply. Wanda nods. “Cool, uh…” _Yes,_ she thinks. Wanda tilts chin, kissing her softly. Daisy lifts her head from the pillow to reciprocate, feeling the covers slip as Wanda moves to straddle her, tongue slipping into Daisy’s mouth. They kiss for a while and eventually, Wanda drags herself away from Daisy, sitting up, on top of her hips. Daisy stares at her in the dark, eyes easily adjusting.

She is utterly and completely besotted with this woman.

Wanda’s fingers trail over her arms, pressing to feel hard muscle jump as Daisy tenses in apprehension. _What is this?_ Daisy thinks, not understanding. She wants to kiss Wanda, wants to feel her like this, sitting on her like- like a precursor to sex. But nothing in her is firing up, _ready_ for it and for a moment, she wonders if there’s something wrong with her.

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Wanda whispers, red lighting up her hands as she trails up and down Daisy’s arms. She shuffles back, tugging Daisy to sit as she thinks back on her other sexual encounters. The first time she’d been with a man, it felt so _wrong_ and Daisy thought, _well, I’m seventeen, I’m just not ready._ The first time she was with a woman was…boring. Plain. The second time she was with a man, she was nineteen and it still felt so wrong – but it was much more wrong than when she was with a woman. At least she got off with the woman.

“I should feel something,” Daisy murmurs. “Shouldn’t I?”

“Danek is aro-ace,” Wanda points out clearly, hands in a loose grip on her arms, but still moving up and down. Daisy finds it soothing, wrapping her arms around Wanda’s waist, feeling so much…freer, like she can actually act now they’ve kissed. “Maybe you are not aromantic, but…”

“It would make a lot of sense,” Daisy shrugs a little, keeping her breathing even. “God, I- I just feel so fucked up now. Fucked up. Can I even say that?”

“I don’t know. That’s your decision,” Wanda says, a little humour leaking through in her voice. She presses a small kiss to Daisy’s cheek, then the corner of her lip. Daisy instigates a _proper_ kiss – and then there’s that warm absence again that puts her off-centre.

She sighs and then as the kiss ends, rather than fuck and lose their clothes under the bed, Daisy and Wanda lie back and share the covers of their bed, to sleep.

* * *

They lose Danek in a freak accident.

He crosses the street without looking both way, grinning at them. Daisy is sitting with a stolen laptop at a café that has wifi, contacting Miles on a public server they set up if neither had access to the darknet. She knows that people will have moved to new corners of the net, that the FBI and other agencies will have cracked down on some old hotspots while she’s been offline, so Daisy will need his help to get new paper identities set up – not to mention, hacking some funds for them, though possibly, Miles might just give her a loan between friends.

Everything about the moment is perfect, with Danek still smiling from the last joke they shared – only for Daisy to see a car suddenly coming up behind him, speeding around the corner. Her smile disappears and she yells his name. He goes insubstantial, only reappearing when the car has stopped, brakes screeching. He’s _fine, alive_ and Daisy breathes a sigh of relief, lip curling upwards – only for another car to come squealing around the corner, slamming into his completely substantial, completely solid body.

He dies there on the street, in the place he’s been flung to and when sirens echo between the building walls, Daisy’s barely keeping the ground from trembling enough to knock over a chalkboard sign. It’s the lack of control that summons Pietro to them. He hides in a side-street with Wanda as police surround them.

 _We will find you again, soon,_ Wanda promises as the ambulance take Danek’s body away and the local police-force ask Daisy to come with them.

Danek’s death reminds Daisy of a film she watched when she was younger with Sandra Bullock, where the main character’s husband is about to die. The way the scene is shot makes you think he’s going to survive – that his cause of death is, _was_ going to be because of the cyclists.

Instead, he gets a truck to the face and it’s one of the most heart-breaking moments in the entire film. Daisy can still remember crying with all three of her mothers and her dad on the sofa, curling up on Natasha’s lap as her mamochka startles and presses her hands to her eyes.

The Austrian police try to get Danek’s identity from her, but Daisy makes it pretty clear that she’s not going to be telling them. Daisy refuses to do so. Danek never had a passport or a national identification card, the type issued to most Europeans and Daisy doesn’t know the laws about crossing borders in the EU. The fact that she doesn’t have any of her own ID either makes for a pretty damning story for the police.

They put her in an interrogation room.

A few hours later, after staring at the one-way glass for hours on end, thinking of how she could have saved Danek’s life, her whole body _aching_ , the door opens and in enters a plain-faced man in a suit.

“Hello. I’d like to talk to you about your friend, if that’s alright.”

 _American,_ Daisy thinks, not looking away from the glass. The placement is different from in movies – the one-way glass to her left and another, thinner one-way glass to her right. She looks at the left one, using it to see the man, who looks at her directly as he sits down on the chair opposite her.

“The guys here said you were being uncooperative. I get why, after seeing the security tapes from the street. Your friend, he was powered. I wouldn’t want anyone finding that out very quickly, either.”

Daisy looks at the man properly.

He’s bland, wearing a bland smile and a bland tie. Daisy taps the table with her fingers, using the vibrations like echolocation. _A badge, in his pocket. A gun, too._ Somehow, it doesn’t surprise her.

“What agency are you from?” she questions.

“SHIELD,” he says, “the newly-reformed SHIELD, that is.”

 _Shit,_ Daisy thinks, because it’s not been five years yet. If he recognises her from some stray picture, or if he _spreads_ her picture, her whole ‘being fake dead’ thing could be blown wide open. Five years – one for every major SHIELD agent in her life. Maria, Santa, Clint, Laura and Natasha. It gives her mamochka time to make sure all of them are relatively safe, that what’s left of Hydra has given up getting claws in them.

“Does that bother you?” the agent asks. “Are you running from Hydra? Everyone knows how interested in powered people they are – Bucky Barnes as one example, how they tried to take off with Captain America’s unfrozen, comatose body, another.”

Daisy’s eyes widen. “Captain America’s _what?_ ”

“Oh yeah, did you not hear? It’s been all over the news, has been for weeks.” The agent says genially. “No contact with the outside world. Been off the grid?”

“…maybe,” Daisy says. “Danek needs to be incinerated.”

“I can have that arranged, so long as you give me something in return. His family – you said his name was Danek? Won’t they be worried about him?”

“He’s Sokovian. They’re long dead. He just needs incinerated,” Daisy says, before twisting her entire body around the face the agent. “If you don’t get it done, my friends will. Same with getting me out of here.”

The agent raises an eyebrow. “I’d like to see that. Are they powered too? Are you?”

“I’m normal,” Daisy says breezily, leaning back. “As for my friends, well…you’ll have to see.”

“Interesting,” the agent says, before nodding, standing. “Thank-you for your time, Miss…”

“Zhou,” Daisy fills. “What about you, mystery SHIELD agent?”

The agent gives a larger smile. “Phil Coulson. It was nice to meet you, Miss Zhou. Expect to see me again, before your friends try and fail at breaking you out.” He leaves and Daisy stares on after him.

_Phil Coulson._

**_Shit._ **

* * *

A few minutes after Agent Coulson – _shit, shit, shit, shit, shit_ – leaves the room, the police come back in, handcuffing her and putting a bag over her head. Daisy attempts to get out of their grip without using her powers, but someone tasers her. Electricity running through her body, Daisy finds herself being transported into something.

That something turns out to be a plane.

 _Do not worry, Daisy, we are here._ Wanda’s thoughts drift by _. The SHIELD agents are lifting off. They have Danek’s body. We are hidden away in a cupboard._

Calmer upon knowing Wanda and Pietro are nearby, Daisy lets herself fall into a short sleep on the bed she’s been put on. She wakes up when the door opens, admitting two people.

“Miss Zhou, apologies for the tasering – that wasn’t my call, though.”

“It hurt like a bitch, you _should_ be apologising.” Daisy hauls herself up into a sitting position, wincing at the after-effects. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, this isn’t the first time she’s been tasered. _Mamochka’s Widows Bites **really** take the sting out of this one – and I cannot be bothered with correcting my Russian grammar right now… mazernyye Widows Bites._

Someone comes over, gently taking the bag off her head. The ‘someone’ turns out to be a frowny black dude.

“You feeling alright, sweetheart?”

_Correction: frowny-because-he-cares black dude._

“I’m good. Had worst, by accident, a couple of times. Do _not_ ask. My mom would never forgive me.”

“This is Agent Triplett,” Agent Coulson introduces. “He’s had his fair share of betrayal from individuals in Hydra.”

“Awesome,” Daisy says, voice croaking suddenly. She stays still as Agent Triplett unlocks her cuffs, taking them quietly. “You know,” she starts, looking at Coulson, deciding to see if he actually knows who she is and this isn’t some kind of elaborate game. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognise me.”

“Really?” Coulson blinks in surprise. “Do you know me?”

“Only by name,” Daisy replies honestly. “Never even seen a picture. So – what did you kidnap me for?”

“The seismic activity after the crash,” Coulson says, bringing a picture up of the area. Half a mile out from where Danek had died, there is a perfect circle of devastation. “Other readings show what looks like waves going down and out from the eye of the storm, circling back up in this circle. I’m thinking that you’re not so ‘normal’ as you say – you’re powered, unless Danek had this ability too.”

Daisy feels shaken, staring at the picture. She can feel it now, in her bones, in her arms and shins, a pain that isn’t residual from the tasering or psychological. _Microfractures_ , she thinks. _Was my grief that strong?_ She dares not stand, feeling like she has to be so careful now…

“Is there something wrong with my assessment?”

“Do you have a medic on board?” Daisy questions, feeling numb. In her mind, she hears Wanda asking why she needs a medic, but doesn’t reply.

“What’s wrong?” Triplett questions.

“Uh…I hurt myself. Doing that. I didn’t realise till now.” She thinks, _microfractures,_ loudly. “I need, like, splints or a tubi-grip bandage. There’s not much I can do about it. Hydra used to make me wear this…suit. It helped channel everything. I control vibrations.”

“We can get a medic up here, or a biochemist, I mean. She’s our medic, here.”

“Yeah, I already know we’re in the air,” Daisy forces herself to give Coulson a small smile, but it feels strained. “Your super-spy plane is cool. Not as cool as Lola, but still…”

“How do you know about Lola?” Coulson questions, indignant.

Daisy shrugs, looking at her arms, pushing up her sleeves. As she thought there might be, there are bruises growing, mottled and _bad._

“Jesus,” Triplett mutters. “That just on your arms?”

“Legs, too. It’s all about projecting. I’m a conduit that’s not strong enough to handle my own powers. I- I didn’t mean to, before.” Daisy glances at the picture, the ring of collapsed city. “That was an accident.”

“I see,” Coulson nods, before putting the photo away. “How did you get your powers? Were you experimented on?”

“I’m not going to tell you about that,” Daisy replies.

“You told me about Danek and you just told us about your powers,” Coulson counters. “I think you’ll give in easily.”

“No, I won’t. Confirming what you already guessed so I could safely seek out medical attention isn’t just me _giving in_ easily – and making sure Danek’s gift can’t be salvaged from his corpse?” Daisy shakes her head, defensive, shifting away from Agent Triplett and lying back on the bed, getting pressure off her legs. _I hope I don’t need to stay off them for too long,_ she thinks, before listening to the hum of the plane and the footsteps of the agents as they leave.

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

“I just think that calling it the _Night-Night_ gun is a bit…”

“A bit what?”

“-childish,” Jemma finishes, glancing over at Fitz as he huffs. “Don’t get moody on me, Fitz, we’ve got _work_ to do.”

Fitz huffs again. “I still think you could do it, Simmons.”

“What? Oh, create instant paralysis with a dose of only point one microliters of Dendrotoxin? I am _not_ Hermione Granger, Fitz,” Jemma shakes her head, adjusting her plastic goggles and sitting up from where she’d been leaning over petri dishes. Opening the cupboard beside her knee, Jemma looks inside, puffing an annoyed breath out as she realises they’ve run out of cotton bud sticks for sampling.

Getting up – and putting the petri dishes inside a plastic box, latching the lid; _health and safety first!_ – Jemma heads to the supply cupboard, leaving Fitz behind to mutter bitterly about the Night-Night gun.

 _Oh no, now **I’ve** started to call it that as well,_ Jemma despairs at her own thoughts. She reaches out to key in a pass-code, only to freeze a centimetre away from the pad, realising the light is off.

“What? But that means…” Jemma frowns, before opening the door without the need for a pass-code. Immediately she sees the problem, eyes widening at the two stowaways. She barely gets a chance to process their appearance before the silver-haired man grabs her by the throat, swinging her inside the cupboard, against the metal spine of a shelf.

“Hello,” he says, grinning. The other stowaway comes to his elbow – a woman whose eyes glow red. “And who might you be?”

“How- how did you get in without being caught?”

“We will be asking the questions, here,” the woman says in a threatening voice. “First: how many people are here on this craft?”

“I don’t know! If you got on, then anyone-”

“How many team-members?” the man interrupts. Jemma panics, choking slightly in his grip. “We know there are at least four of you. Coulson, Triplett and you two little scientists who have been chatting away for hours without a proper break. How is your voice not dead, by now?”

“Who’s the pilot?” the woman suddenly questions, just as Jemma inwardly realises they’d left out May. _May, she can help me – Agent May!_ The red light recedes from the woman’s eyes. “Five, at the very least. Should I just dig through your head without asking first? Your surface thoughts are particularly loud.”

That catches Jemma’s interest. “Thoughts? You can hear thoughts?” _Oh my, does that mean she’s a telepath?_

“I am much more than a telepath,” the woman says, smirking slightly. The man sighs suddenly, letting Jemma down onto her feet, letting go of her neck. Jemma has less than a second’s reprieve, before he’s bound her hands tightly with duct-tape, slapping a small bit over her mouth, too. The woman glares at him. “Did you have to do that, Pietro?”

The man – Pietro – shrugs. “My arm was getting tired.” The woman rolls her eyes, before looking to the door. “Should I go get her friend?”

“Be quick.”

“Always,” Pietro grins, before disappearing in a blur of blue and silver. _Oh my._ Jemma’s eyes widen, before a different kind of panic surges through her as he reappears, Fitz flailing in his arms. “Stop moving,” Pietro says irritably, before Fitz gets in a lucky hit. Immediately, both men freeze, but then the woman reaches out with her arm, red light streaming through the air to swirl around Fitz’s head. To Jemma’s horror, he goes completely docile, letting Pietro tie him up at human speed rather than- than _superhuman_ speed.

“There, done,” Pietro finishes. The woman swipes her hands through the air, rings glinting in the light streaming in from the plane corridor as the red fades from around Fitz’s face.

“What the _hell?_ ” Fitz looks around, pinpointing her instantly. “Simmons!” From behind her gag, Jemma tries to cry out his name in turn, but all that comes out is sound. Pietro lazily grabs the duct-tape again.

“Time for you to be quiet, now.” He tears a bit off, slapping it over Fitz’s mouth before he can speak again. “There. Now to investigate this SHIELD plane a little more.”

* * *

“May, a word,” Phil knocks on the cockpit door. He waits a few seconds before stepping back as it opens to admit his best friend. “Hey, so, if anyone would talk about me to their kids, who would they be?”

Melinda immediately frowns. “Talk about you to their _kids?_ Why? Is this about that girl we took?”

“Yeah,” Phil leans up against the wall on one shoulder. “Says her name’s Zhou. Found a matching ID on the system – Samantha’s her name. Mentioned her mom. I think her mom tasered her by accident.”

“Every SHIELD agent could work a taser, even Fitzsimmons know how.” Melinda says. “It’s more likely her mother’s a civilian, if it was an accident. No training, playing around with her partner’s equipment, that sort of thing.”

Phil nods his head side to side, “Yeah, but she knew about Lola. She said that Lola was cooler the Bus.”

“She called our plane _the Bus?_ ” Melinda straightens, startling.

“No, no,” Phil corrects his mistake. “She called it a ‘super-spy plane’.”

“Let me talk to her,” Melinda requests, before Antoine calls out.

“Uh, sir? I think we’ve got a problem.”

Phil looks back to where the specialist agent is frowning at the holo-table. “What is it?”

Antoine pulls the things on the flat of the holo-table up, Phil and Melinda making their way over. “How can she have a mom if she’s been in foster-care all her life?”

“Oh,” Phil’s eyes widen, looking over the sparse files. Samantha Zhou has very little paperwork documenting her life and- “Wait, what’s that?” Phil points, finger extended towards her passport photo.

“What?” Melinda questions what he’s seen. “What is it?”

“That necklace,” Phil reaches, zooming in on it. The chain is practically invisible in the picture, but the solid arrow shape to the centre-piece is clear silver against her skin. _I know that necklace._ “I really hope this is a coincidence,” he wishes out loud, before taking out his phone and copying the picture of the ID, sending it in an encrypted email to Hill.

“Coulson, what is it? Do you know her after all?”

“Maybe,” Phil says, “by name. Like she knew me. I always thought it was a shame I never got to meet her.”

“So…you _do_ know her?” Antoine questions.

“Maybe,” Phil repeats before Hill starts calling him. He picks up immediately.

“ _Tell me what the hell is going on in the Bus and tell me fast, before I have you flying in my direction,_ ” her voice is full of anger and it’s both confirming and terrifying.

“We picked a girl up. She’s got powers, probably a decent candidate for the Index, actually. It’s her, isn’t it? I was half on the brink-”

“ _Phil,_ ” Maria interrupts in a quieter voice, audibly swallowing on the other end of the line. “ _If you don’t get her on the phone in the next thirty seconds, I won’t bother killing you – I’ll just send Natasha to give you our regards for raising my hopes like this._ ”

“On it,” Phil says, moving quickly, Antoine and Melinda on his tail. “So what happened? Did someone ID a body wrong?”

“ _I don’t know and I really hope the body was a plant, that someone else hacked the records…”_

“Else? Are you saying that she’s a hacker?”

He can hear Maria sighing. “ _Phil, she spent her holidays with Tony Stark. The only thing they bonded over other than DJ was computers._ ”

“I hear you,” Phil confirms, approaching the Black Box before abruptly stopping upon seeing two strangers outside the door. Behind him, Melinda and Antoine raise arms. “Hill, I’m going to have to call you back.”

“ _Coulson, no, don’t-”_

Phil hangs up. “I’ll assume you’re Miss Zhou’s infamous friends?”

The duo glance at each other before the smaller female raises her chin. “We have detained your two scientist teammates. They are tied up in a closet.”

“I see. You know, Samantha isn’t exactly in the condition to fight back.”

“We know, she told us,” the woman smiles coldly, eyes swirling red. It freaks Phil out a bit, the same being said for Antoine, who steps back, drawn gun raising higher.

“That’s freaky, just saying.”

“Do not call my sister ‘freaky’,” the silver-haired man frowns, focusing on Antoine. “Our powers are our birthright.”

“Pietro, enough,” his sister puts her hand in his, turning back to the door and putting her other one against the lockpad. Phil can guess her intentions.

“Can’t we all just talk this out? I can unlock the door for you – this plane is new, please don’t break it.”

“Good,” Pietro says, before- before something _weird_. Phil finds himself being pulled over to where they’re standing because – he thinks – Pietro just used superspeed to bring him there. “Open the door.”

“Let him go,” Melinda orders, safety clicking off. Pietro eyes her warily and Phil takes a wild guess that the corridor is too slim for the young man to take a chance at trying to both dodge the bullet and ensure his sister’s well-being. The hands on his elbows loosen, before Pietro steps back, hands rising. Phil looks to the woman.

“Do you happen to have a name?”

“Wanda,” she murmurs, watching him with unblinking eyes. Phil meets her gaze briefly, before turning to the lock-pad. Opening the door, Phil watches Pietro zoom in and out, the girl snoring lightly. Wanda’s lip twitches before she gently wakes her up, murmuring in a foreign language. ‘Miss Zhou’ wakes up quickly, Pietro making a disgusted sound when the two women kiss.

“Why do you have to do that in front of me? I need brain bleach.”

“Deal with it, Quicksilver,” Zhou says, smirking up at the glaring speedster.

“I will drop you,” he threatens.

“Drop her and I hurt you,” Wanda replies in Zhou’s stead, before looking to Phil. “Let us go.”

“You’re running from Hydra,” Phil states. “We can help you.”

“We don’t need help. We just…we just want Danek to be cremated,” Wanda says quietly. “He was our good friend and loveliest comrade.”

“Abs out for Sokovia,” Zhou says with a weak smile. Pietro snorts, snickering while Wanda looks less impressed. “C’mon, it’s a quote. He came up with the best comebacks.”

“Would you like to get drunk from our minibar?” Phil questions in another attempt to get them to stay on board.

To be quite honest, he wasn’t expecting them to agree.


	6. smoothies.1.3

“Roll over…good boy, Lucky,” DJ grins, feeding the dog a treat. Kate meows, coming to bump up against his wrist. DJ feeds her a treat as well, scratching the back of her neck. “You are a lovely cat, aren’t you Kate? Katie, Katie, Kate-cat.”

Kate purrs, climbing up into DJ’s lap. DJ keeps smiling, but it fades as Lucky tries to burrow in under Kate, making the cat let out a small sound of annoyance, batting at him with her paw. Lucky continues to try burrowing under her, but Kate isn’t having it. Eventually, DJ has to push them both up, not used to having to deal with them at the same time. Usually, he has a partner in crime.

Usually, he has Daisy.

Across the field, near the woods, the pack of disabled dogs that Laura lets run wild all over the property during the day begin to bark and howl, calling Lucky to them. Lucky scrambles across the wooden deck of the house, claws scrabbling against the lacquer as he barks back at them, refusing to leave the safe cleanliness of the porch. Kate jumps up onto the banister, settling herself on it to watch.

“Housecat,” DJ murmurs, before tucking his hands in his pocket, walking into the house. In the living room – which is barely different from the last living room, from the last house that the Barton’s lived in, less than ten miles away under constant surveillance from SHIELD and Hydra alike – Cooper is on the ground, staring up at the coloured flashing lights. At the coffee table, Laura is cross-legged, doing paper-work.

“Having trouble keeping distracted?” she questions. “I know it must be hard, going from a busy day at school to moping around a house.”

“I am not bored,” DJ replies.

“Right,” Laura nods, speaking a tone that belays her agreement. She looks up from her paperwork, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not the same, being here without her, is it?” DJ supresses his flinch. “Between you and me? I don’t think I’ll be the same. I helped raise that girl. I was already engaged to Clint when he brought up adopting Daisy – my parents were upset that we had to rush the wedding, until they met her. There’s an empty space in my heart, now…a void.”

“Daisy is- was, your daughter. It’s expected. She was just my friend,” DJ comes over, sitting down beside Cooper, poking his tummy gently, not looking at Laura. “You must miss her greatly.”

“Bit of an understatement – but not just for me. Don’t bring yourself down, Stark. You were very close to our girl.”

“She should be here right now. I shouldn’t have let her leave the mansion.” DJ says morosely as Cooper shakes his arms and legs, kicking out and catching himself on DJ’s robotic arm. As he starts crying, DJ picks him up, feeling responsible, rubbing his foot gently. “Cooper won’t ever know her. Will you tell him about her? Your family isn’t the type that keeps pictures, not like mine.”

“We have enough,” Laura states. “We tell Coop stories, little ones. Clint likes to describe her in ASL, so he doesn’t have to talk.”

“Does he understand enough ASL to communicate?” DJ questions, rocking him gently. He shuffles his grip, bringing up his robotic hand to sign – it forces him to remember the motions. His mechanical arm doesn’t have muscle memory, unlike his flesh one. ‘ _Hello. My name is D-J’._ Noting how Coop’s eyes focus on his hand, DJ guesses that the young boy will have an easier time learning ASL if his parents keep the work up.

“It’s a work in progress.”

DJ nods, inwardly promising his best friend’s brother that he’ll be there for him, where his sister can’t.

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

“…there,” Tony leans back as Bucky’s new arm shifts. The super-soldier groans, shuddering before lifting it up high, twisting it around. Unlike his last arm, with silver plating and a ghastly red star, his new arm is much more human, like he’d requested. “You know, I could always give you a fancy paint-job instead of this rubber cover. DJ’s arm is like that – still hasn’t changed his mind much from when he was a kid. His arm is orange, like that bright _orange-orange_. He’s got some geometric designs, as well, which are a lot cooler than the sunny days grass and flowers he had before. Sometimes, he puts stickers on top of them-”

“I’m fine,” Bucky interrupts, lowering his arm down, wincing. “Is it supposed to hurt?”

“Your brain is realigning itself. It hasn’t had to move a proper arm for decades. Your old one was pretty neat, but this is like the real thing – it’s got all the right electrical impulses sorted, down to the millimetre.” Folding some of Bucky’s new fingers, Tony watches the rest of them for the appropriate reactions, still speaking as he does. “It’s based off your human arm, with some repair done where you’ve got some old injuries, for better reception. I told you that it’d be better to put it on while you’re high on drugs, Bucky-bear.”

Across the lab, Yinsen chuckles. Tony glances over at him.

“Hey, no distractions allowed. You’re supposed to be saving my life again.”

“I am supervising Jarvis as he runs through elemental compositions for the arc reactor,” Yinsen says. “I can afford to get distracted, unlike you. I’d give Mr Barnes some medication, but I believe it’s too late to help with his far more volatile reactions to different stimuli.”

Tony quickly looks back to Bucky, who’s suddenly sweating buckets, eyes rolling back in his head. “Crap.” Tony goes over, helping him lie down on his back, avoiding the sudden swing from his flesh arm, his robotic one spasming. “Jarvis, get a suit in here, please-”

“ _One is already on its way, Father._ ”

“Good- woah!” Tony ducks down as Bucky tries to hit out again, chest aching at the sudden movement. “These flashbacks must be pretty rotten. Probably arm related-”

“Do you need a hand?” Yinsen questions worriedly, before the Iron Man suit comes stomping into the room. Tony steps back into it, waiting until he’s locked in before moving in, holding Bucky down as he yells out, voice full of fear and desperation.

“No! No, Steve, no-”

Tony sees Yinsen wincing in the corner of the HUD and finds himself replicating the action. Bucky has been having flashbacks since the first time Tony met him. The Winter Soldier had been Hydra’s guard-dog, watching him like a hawk – except with their little panic over being exposed, they left him out of the ice too long. Tony looking so much like his dad only helped matters. In true Commando fashion – despite how Bucky was supposedly the only Commando with a lick of sense for the subtle, a true sniper – Bucky had helped them stage their explosive break-out, providing a distraction so Tony could get the first Iron Man suit operational before then saving a suicidal Yinsen.

Really, Tony sometimes feels like he’s the least fucked up of the three of them. Daddy issues with Howard’s A+ Parenting aside, Tony’s had to shape up since that first day of the new millennium. Being a decent father to DJ was, _is_ so much more important to him than repressing his abuse – and while yeah, the Ten Rings might have given Tony some PTSD and a definitive fear of water, but at least his whole family wasn’t killed in front of him and he wasn’t brainwashed to work for Nazis.

 _It’s so horrible,_ Tony thinks as he holds Bucky down for his own safety and the safety of everyone in the building, _to know that some of the worst Nazis were never defeated._

Eventually, Bucky stops having flashbacks and lies on the gurney, somewhat out of it.

“Bucky-bear? You feeling better?” Tony questions, not lifting his hands off Bucky’s torso and stomach. Bucky blinks once.

“I feel like shit. Zola’s a piece of shit, too.”

“What about your arm?”

“It’s fine,” Bucky replies in a staunch voice. “I might hurl though. Let me up.”

“Are you going to go monster-assassin on us?” Tony questions, “Because that’s happened before.”

“I’m gonna hurl,” he repeats and Tony lets him go, JARVIS directing him to a trash can to dry-heave into. There’s not much in Bucky’s stomach to bring up, to be fair – being put into crappy cryogenic stasis completely fucked with his digestive track. He still lives on a nutrient drip here in America, has done for the last five months. If he was fed anything at all _other_ than through a nutrient drip for the last seventy years, only Hydra knows.

There’s a sudden negative sound from Yinsen’s computer. “Tony,” Yinsen starts. “We have a problem.”

“What?” Tony questions, turning to see and immediately being shown the problem by JARVIS on his HUD. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck-”

“ _No known element or element combination will serve as a replacement for palladium, Father. It just can’t be done._ ”

“-fuck.”

* * *

The years pass and DJ is alone.

He is acquainted with his peers at culinary school and he spends time with his family, determined to gain Bucky’s trust, more than just Yinsen’s second-hand respect and help Clint teach Cooper ASL. His father is distant. After moving out, DJ had thought that his father would crave spending time with him when he was there, but Tony Stark is like the wind – he’s so focused on his projects, the most important of which he’ll talk about easily with Yinsen, JARVIS and Bucky, but never DJ.

“It’s sensitive. Mostly it’s how Iron Man runs – excuse me, young Mr Stark,” Yinsen lies and peddles around the issue. It lowers DJ’s opinion of the man, briefly, before he hears Yinsen sighing, murmuring swears in his native language, saying _I hate this, I hate lying to children._

DJ doesn’t think Yinsen is aware of just how many linguaphiles are in the building. DJ also doesn’t think Yinsen knows that DJ is eighteen.

Most of the time, DJ talks to JARVIS, using an earpiece so they can contact each other at any time. They talk about mundane things and occasionally, DJ uses his brother’s computer-skills to edit his planner. But otherwise, DJ is alone.

“My psych is suffering,” DJ mutters to himself in the privacy of his room. He sighs.

Then the windows bust in.

It takes DJ by surprise and almost immediately, he’s sitting up in bed because _his windows are missile-proof._ Letting out a small shriek at the sight of masked men using lines to hang in front of his windows, DJ is quick to scramble off his bed, heading for his bathroom.

_No, not being kidnapped again, nope-_

One of the goons grabs his arm.

“Jarvis!” DJ calls, before reaching up to his shoulder and engaging the emergency detachment sequence. Gritting his teeth as the arm itself and shoulder casing pull off, the nerves/electronics pulling outwards, DJ keeps on towards the bathroom, the bright blue light of the arc reactor trailing behind him as the goon stops to look at the robotic arm in his grip in brief confusion.

“ _Cease and desist,_ ” JARVIS orders the men, a machine gun lowering from the ceiling – only for all the electricity in the house to turn off, machine gun included.

“Get him!” Another goon yells, a different one grabbing his shirt, pulling him back and choking him briefly. “Knock him out.”

DJ twists in his captors’ grip just in time to see a taser and react, reaching up with his free hand to the wires still attached to his shoulder, ripping them off before the taser can blow the arc reactor and subsequently, New York, to kingdom come. He screams prematurely to the tasering, however, feeling as if his arm has been torn off – which, technically, it just had been. The actual tasering is horrible. He can feel himself go stiff as a board and _knows_ that someone is catching him.

 _That taser had a very high amperage,_ DJ will later think. _Too strong for skinny little me._

He’ll think that later because after thirty seconds of being tased, DJ blacks out, waking up with all his limbs tied down, his neck tied back in the space of a second arm. The goons surrounding him are still dressed up, but now that he has the chance to study them, DJ can see the Hydra logo on each.

“Fucking _Hydra,_ ” he curses without his own permission. All the men look over, but only one keeps looking after that split second. A tall, muscular Hydra agent approaches, his footsteps surprisingly quiet and smooth for someone DJ might have otherwise said was a grunt.

“Yes,” he starts, voice indescribably calm. “We’re Hydra. Good thing you took your arm off – twice. A few of my scientists here noticed the arc reactor. You’re a brave kid – though was it selfishness or self _less_ ness that forced you to decide not to destroy the East Coast?”

“Both,” DJ says, perplexed. The Hydra agent takes off his head-gear, revealing himself to be a plain-faced, dark-haired man, aged around thirty years old. “What do you want with me?”

“Various things. We want you as leverage. We want you to design a couple of things. _I_ would like to convince you to join Hydra, but the higher-ups don’t want to risk it after the debacle with the Winter Soldier.”

“His name is Bucky,” DJ replies harshly, glaring. The agent shrugs.

“I don’t care. You can call me Ward, during your time with me. Bring your complaints to Sitwell.” ‘Ward’ says, before turning away from him, motioning to a bald man with glasses in a suit. DJ looks around the room, tugging at his restraints and immediately giving up. For one, they’re too strong and second, DJ very much doubts his basic self-defence that he has _not_ been keeping up since Daisy died last year will help him against Ward and his goons.

_I’m fucked. I am completely and utterly fucked._

* * *

DJ doesn’t have a plan. He’s not the planning type. The only thing he knows he can rely on is his family – his dad, JARVIS, Uncle Rhodey, Aunt Pepper and the bots. So _maybe_ his younger brothers won’t be much help, but they’d try and it’s the thought that counts.

Truthfully, DJ just keeps hoping that his captors won’t discover the GPS in his arm…

“Boss, there’s a tracker in this thing-”

“Get rid of it.”

“There’s not enough time to disable it, sir.”

“I meant the _arm._ ”

Ward is an ass, but he’s a clever ass. Handsome, too – one of the only perks of doing nothing all day is getting to watch him work out. If he were in a magazine as a model and not a Hydra creep, DJ might even like him in that _oh dear, he’s hot_ fashion. However, Ward is a clever, unfortunately handsome, Hydra, creepy ass.

DJ watches him prowl around the small space they’re in – _it has to be a truck, we’re moving, there are engines under my feet, the space is long_ – restless and too full of energy. Even doing hundreds of pull-ups at a time doesn’t faze him. The way he talks though, DJ can’t stand it.

 _He’s going to do something dangerous at some point. Expected, yet unexpectedly._ DJ isn’t a psychologist or a government super-spy. He can’t look at someone, analyse them and say when they’ll snap. Ward gets under DJ’s skin, when DJ isn’t ignoring it to give himself a measure of comfort by admiring him. For DJ, it’s like- like waiting for a murderer to get their weapon of choice. DJ is stuck in one place, tied up, watching and listening, yet unable to do anything but wait for the inevitable.

It reminds him of Asgard.

“Garret just sent me a message,” Sitwell says, sounding surprised. He looks up and over to Ward. “We’ve got to stop driving around and go to the Moscow base.”

“Moscow base?” Ward keeps himself held up on the bar, frowning at the ceiling of the truck for a few moments before dropping. “Alright. Are we heading back East or-”

“He says to get off the ground as soon as possible,” Sitwell interrupts. “I’m going to assume he means: take a boat.”

 _I like boats,_ DJ thinks with a wince. _This’ll turn into a cardboard-box phobia thing again._ Ever since being kidnapped as a child from his day-care and placed in a cardboard box, DJ has been terrified to go near them or even touch them. Each time DJ is present when Clint or Laura brings a new animal to the farmhouse and they’re in a box with a blanket, he has to leave the room until it’s sorted. DJ can’t even explain _why_ he’s so afraid of them, not like his pickle and ketchup fear.

_I really hope I’m not scared of boats after this._

“Fine, then,” Ward brushes his hands on his shirt. “Tell the driver to get a move on.”

“You know, I’m technically your superior-” Sitwell starts.

“And technically, I’m a cold-blooded murderer. Still want to work with technicalities?” Ward smiles at his fellow Hydra operative, who looks scared for a split-second, before he gets up out of his seat, passing the trio of scientists working at their computers to the door to the front. Ward turns to DJ. “You’ve been quiet lately. How are you holding up?”

“My neck is hurting from this zip-tie,” DJ says. “Two out of five stars.”

Ward chuckles. “Well, how else am I going to pin you down? That single arm just makes it all awkward. How did it happen?”

“I was born like this.”

“I don’t believe that,” Ward immediately says. “See, I’ve been around a few amputees with those arms. SHIELD had a deal going with Stark Industries, way back when – Hydra started to cannibalise the tech for a sweet second, until they realised everything they did was being recorded by the arms and reported to both SHIELD and SI that SHIELD was breaking contract.”

“Insurance clauses that exist to protect SI patents, which are all perfectly legal, allow certain SI tech to send and receive data about being mishandled or taken apart,” DJ claims. “How is that relevant to my arm?”

Ward shrugs. “Slight detour. Anyway. I’ve seen and worked with a couple of agents with arms like yours and they were…good. Pretty damn good. Couldn’t tell the difference between what they used to move like, up until they took their prosthetics off. You’re not like them – or civilians, for that matter. Their prosthetics aren’t as complex as the military versions.”

“My prosthetic is hand-designed,” DJ points out. “My dad wants me to have the best at all times. I get a new upgrade every couple of months, sometimes even an entirely new arm.”

“Which is exactly why I’m confused.” Ward sits down in a chair opposite DJ – the one he usually takes anyway. “You’d think that you’d be so used to having an arm, that you’d get even more confused that the agents. But as soon as it was off and you woke up, there was none of that. No over-compensation, nothing at all…”

Everything about what he says is confusing. DJ understands, up to a point, where’s he’s coming from on this angle. DJ doesn’t have an adjustment period after taking his arm off and that is weird as hell – however that’s when it gets confusing, because Ward not believing DJ was born without an arm…that doesn’t fit either. DJ stares at Ward in the _is he alright in the head_ way rather than his usual _what does he look like without a shirt on_ way, wondering if the man had gone off in a tangent of speech.

“If you were born without an arm, that would mean you were born without all the right controls – am I right?” Ward looks over at the scientists, the closest of which glances over with a slightly-confused look. “If you’re born without a limb, you wouldn’t know how to control it with your brain, because the natural controls aren’t there, right?”

“…usually, I think. I’m no expert-”

“Thanks,” Ward ends their part of the conversation, looking back to DJ. “So, what happened to your arm?”

“I…I’m being serious. I’ve only ever had one arm,” DJ says, vaguely worried for Ward’s well-being.

“How do you work the arm, then? It connects to nerves and the brain – so?”

“…it’s quite interesting, actually. I watched a documentary once, about this toddler who had half her brain taken out. She lived and grew up, just about perfectly normal because when one half of her brain was gone, the other half was able to take on the missing half’s jobs.” The truck jolts and DJ winces as the strap around his neck yanks, cutting into his already-bloody skin. “You’d get a better answer from my dad, but I suppose what happens with my arm is that it plugs in and- and the part of my brain that controls my other arm controls this one, too.”

“How did you learn?”

“I…” _I already knew how because I had two arms as Jörmungandr. It came naturally to me._ “I just did. I was eight. Eight-year olds adapt well, I think. I did.”

Ward takes a moment to think that over. “I suppose so.” He exits the truck, going into the drivers booth, shutting the door behind him.

“For what it’s worth,” Sitwell says to him. “I’m against kidnapping you. Stark always gets what his back.”

“Yes, he does,” DJ agrees.

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

“I cannot get that phrase out of my head. ‘ _Abs out for Sokovia_ ’ – god, I hated working out, but I loved it at the same time. Danek didn’t like it, but he did it anyway.” Daisy reminisces, trying and failing to lift the sad mood.

“I keep thinking of what’s going to happen next and I keep imagining him still with us,” Wanda tucks herself into Pietro’s side more, while Daisy on the floor at their feet just finishes the last of the Grey Goose. “I want to bring him back.”

“Don’t,” Daisy immediately says, looking at her girlfriend sharply. “The last time you tried that, it was on a squirrel and you were comatose for half the week. We have to burn him. Burn him and scatter his ashes.”

“I have a way you could do that,” comes Phil Coulson’s voice. “Provided you sober up, of course and do me a favour.”

“What kind of favour?” Pietro questions, accent thick.

“We have intelligence that tells us Hydra will be transporting special cargo to Russia – we’re to intercept and retrieve it,” he states, but his eyes are locked on Daisy. She sets her head back against Wanda’s leg.

 _What is he thinking?_ She asks her girlfriend, who eyes the agent, stiffening abruptly a moment later.

“You know who she is,” Wanda says out loud. Phil glances at the witch.

“Thank-you for confirming. Maria Hill seemed to agree.”

 _No._ Daisy looks up at him in horror. _Maman._ “She knows I’m alive? Why would you tell her that? How did you even figure it out?”

“Your passport picture – in it you’re wearing a necklace that I recognised. I had a hunch,” Phil states, hands clasped behind his back. “Why did you fake your death, Miss Barton?”

“My name is Sammy Zhou,” Daisy hisses, standing up. “I need to speak to Maman. Maria. When did you speak to her?”

“A few hours ago. She’s here, now, actually,” Phil says casually, as if it shouldn’t stun her. Daisy clenches her fists. “She’s in my office with Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD. Her pacing is wearing a hole in my carpet,” he jokes, lip twitching.

“I haven’t seen her in years – I’m not supposed to come back until two thousand and thirteen. That’s what we agreed on.”

“Agreed with who?” he questions and Daisy doesn’t answer. Instead, she asks where his office is. Phil leads her through the plane, Pietro and Wanda staying back when Daisy mentally requests it of Wanda, her girlfriend keeping the speedster in place.

The door to Phil’s office is plain an unassuming. Phil doesn’t bother knocking, letting them both in. He’s shut the door before Daisy sees Maria, who is quick to let out a heavy breath at the sight of her, rushing over. Tears prick her eyes and they hug each tightly. Daisy can’t breathe for a moment, then she’s just full-on sobbing, crying and crying, clutching her mother tightly.

“Oh, sweetie,” Maria presses a kiss to her hair, holding her close. “I’ve missed you so much, you don’t even know.”

“I miss- I missed you _more_ ,” Daisy stutters.

This is the woman who went through torture to keep her safe – who bought her Disney princess bed covers and toys and watched Beauty and the Beast with her every night for months, learning all the songs and dancing with her whenever she wanted to. Maria was her _mommy_ , all those years ago, her saviour from the foster-system, who called her _Mary-moo_ and dabbed her nose with ketchup. Before Natasha and Laura – before even Clint, her _dad_.

The alcohol she’s imbibed has made her more pliable, her emotions welling up inside her like a hot air-balloon – usually she’s so much better at holding herself together. Eventually though, she stops crying, after maybe five minutes and some false stops. Maria doesn’t let go of her even then, though, just giving her some room to move.

Phil and Nick are behind Phil’s desk, the Director sitting with his feet up, Phil standing beside him as his dedicated left hand.

“Miss Barton,” Nick greets.

“Santa,” Daisy replies, getting a small snicker out of the older man. “How’s life?”

“Infested with figures from Greek mythos, but our little extermination crew just got bigger, I think – how powerful are you and your friends?”

“Enough,” Daisy replies vaguely.

“ _Enough_ , she says,” Nick snorts. “We’re going to keep your reappearance classified, Barton Junior. Only those on this plane right now – me, Hill, Coulson, May, your twins and Triplett and Fitzsimmons, too, if you want – get to know you’re alive and kicking. Let’s keep the family drama on the downlow.”

“Well, that’ll be hard,” Maria comments.

“No, it won’t,” Nick says, glaring at Maria slightly before looking back to Daisy. “In good conscience, I can’t let you and your friends go free – not when you might fall into Hydra’s clutches.”

“We’re pretty good at blowing up Hydra bases,” Daisy defends. “I even reported it back to Tony.”

Recognition flares in his eyes. “That was you? Where are the others? Files we managed to salvage said there were at least five so-called ‘Inhumans’.”

“Nine, actually – ten, once. Eva died in the fire and we had to kill her daughter, Katya and Rambo. He was a brute. Maksim, Sergiusz and Hanna went off on their own. Then there was Danek and us.”

“You’re Inhuman,” Nick confirms. Maria’s arms around Daisy tighten briefly. “Saw the reports Phil made. You’re powerful.”

“I have limits,” Daisy argues. “I can’t do much without a suit. I control vibrations – I get microfractures in my arms because I use myself as a conduit.”

“Fitzsimmons could help, if you need technology to control it,” Phil offers.

“Yeah, that,” Nick says.

“You can trust these guys, Dais,” Maria murmurs to her, before finally – reluctantly – letting her go. “Phil especially.”

“He was Dad’s handler,” Daisy recalls. “And Mamochka’s proxy handler, after Dad.”

“That’s not how Russian works,” Maria points out.

“It’s how English works,” Daisy replies breezily, “and at this point, Maman, I don’t care. Mamochka can pick at my grammar later.”

Phil makes a noise of confusion, sounding befuddled. “How many parents do you _have?_ ”

* * *

They give him a cabin to stay in, which is more than DJ expected, to be honest. He’s tied by a chain to the wall, but still, more than he expected – he can even reach the bathroom without stretching.

“Can’t say we don’t treat you well,” Ward says, dabbing an alcohol wipe on the cuts from the zip-ties. DJ hisses, Ward wincing sympathetically. “I know, it stings. You’ll get used to it, don’t worry.”

“I’m going to be alive that long. Wonderful,” DJ says in a flat voice. Ward tuts.

“You’re not going to die here – not in my care, at least. Unless I’m ordered to kill you, I’m keeping you in the best condition possible. You’re only a civilian – little more than a kid, actually. I bet you aren’t like I was, at your age,” Ward muses. “I was an arsonist at sixteen. What were you at sixteen?”

“Trying not to be accepted into MIT,” DJ says, feeling faint. _An arsonist? Dear Norns. Father didn’t set things on fire like that and neither did Dad. Lab fires and magical accidents, yes – arson?_

“That’s the difference between you and me,” Ward says as he places a gauze on his wound. “You come from a place of privilege.”

“I come from a line of genius, more like,” DJ argues. “Privilege had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even go to MIT – I’m a trainee chef.”

“I won’t be letting you near a kitchen, then,” Ward says, voice less funny and more serious. “You’d know how to use everything there to your advantage. A word of advice: people in their home environments are more dangerous than you might realise.”

“An obvious conclusion.”

Ward sticks the gauze down, finger trailing along DJ’s jaw. Their eyes lock and for a moment, DJ doesn’t understand why he feels fear – then Ward cups DJ’s chin, gently moving his face side to side.

“You’re pretty. I could do anything I like to you. Best condition applies to your _visual_ condition.”

“Get away from me,” DJ orders sharply, panic rising up in him quickly. “Get away from me right now.”

Ward lets go of his chin, but he doesn’t move. Neither of them move. DJ feels frozen in place, stuck to his chair. He wants to shut down, to exit this scenario _immediately_. The chain around his ankle is a heavy weight that fears to make _clank_ – he doesn’t want to move to draw attention to himself. Ward’s gaze is heavy and that _fear_ remains, cloaking him like a weighted blanket, trapping him where he sits.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Mr Stark.”

Ward reaches to grab his wrist, clamping around it tight as the other locks in his hair. A noise of pain escapes DJ, laced with terror, before Ward stands, dragging him upwards. There’s a whistle in the wind and a short _crack_ like glass breaking – and then hot liquid is spraying on DJ’s face, a bloody hole appearing in the side of Ward’s forehead. The grip on his wrist slackens and Ward lists forwards.

 _He’s going to fall on me!_ DJ thinks before he catapults himself to the side, landing half on his front and half on his side, functioning arm smacking against the lino-covered floor. He hears the _thump_ of Ward’s body hitting the ground, the chain on his leg scraping and the click of a gun safety going off.

“I’m here to help,” he hears a voice and DJ looks up to see the owner in the open doorway to his cabin. The woman standing there has long black hair, is perhaps with Asian descent and holds her gun steadily as she surveys the room.

“Are you SHIELD?” DJ asks, seeing the patch on her arm. The woman nods and he pushes himself up off the floor, righting his t-shirt. He sees her eyes linger on his empty shoulder, used to it, feeling a strangely passive emptiness at her lack of reaction. “Do you have a name?”

“Do you have a key to that chain?” she replies.

“No,” DJ replies, before she comes over, standing close to him, aiming her gun at it. The safety clicks off and he flinches at the shot, the ricochet not coming anywhere near them but still releasing him, leaving behind a foot of chain.

“That’ll have to do,” she says, bringing her hand to her ear. “I have what Hydra is transferring overseas: it’s Diego Stark.”

“DJ,” DJ corrects, narrowing his eyes as she ignores him.

“What do I do?” she’s quiet for a moment, before she nods. “Affirmative. Returning to the quinjet with Stark now.” Her hand lowers from her ear and she looks to DJ. “I’ll be taking you to our jet. We’ll return you to your family as soon as possible. Do you know why they wanted you?”

“Other than the usual? No. They didn’t even care about the arc reactor in my arm,” DJ admits, glancing at Ward’s prone body. Swallowing, he barely hears the woman’s _follow me_ as he looks away.

There are no other people for her to kill on their journey to their jet – _quinjet, she said._ DJ thinks he remembers that design. His dad leased it to SHIELD a few years ago, before being captured in Afghanistan. DJ’s glad she doesn’t have to kill any more people in front of him, as glad as he is that Ward is dead. He hates to think what Ward might be doing this very second if she hadn’t stepped in.

At the starboard side of the boat, a quinjet is latched onto the side. The woman – agent, he supposes – leads him inside, helping him strap into a seat when it becomes clear he can’t do it one-handed. Then, they wait.

Frankly, DJ doesn’t expect a blue-white blur of a man to speed past him, then come back to crouch in front of him. Freezing, DJ stares at him for a moment, unable to compute the truth of what he’d just seen – _superspeed._

“You are smaller in person,” the man says, accent obvious. DJ trails his eyes over his white hair and bright blue eyes, the stubble of his face a mixture of white and dark brown that he can see in his roots, faintly. His t-shirt is black and skin-tight, with no added Kevlar or protection – his trousers don’t even match, his running shoes clearly worn.

“Your outfit is idiotic,” DJ replies. The man obviously finds that far more offensive than DJ found his comment on his height – the fact that his Dad is shorter than him by an inch gives him enough pride to ignore the rest of the world’s commentary.

“Enough, Pietro,” a woman with the same accent clad in red climbs up into the quinjet, followed by a strangely familiar women in a black agent of SHIELD’s outfit, much like the agent who rescued DJ. He focuses on her, rather than the red woman, frowning at how she deliberately and very obviously uses her hood to hide her face from him.

Staying quiet over her actions, DJ looks to his saviour. “Excuse me, but would I be able to use a satellite phone to call my family?”

The agent looks at him for a few seconds before speaking, “…I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank-you,” DJ nods shortly before looking at his own lap, feeling the tape on his neck keeping down the gauze itch against his skin. _I’ll get to go home soon. I won’t be traumatised by boats. I still like boats. I’m going to stay away from zip-ties from now on, though and tall, dark and handsome men._ He swallows the lump in his throat, unable to stop how he becomes terrified just at the thought of Ward- or of someone _like_ Ward, or _anyone_ looking at him like that again and grabbing his hair or wrist.

His breathing becomes erratic and DJ thinks, _I don’t know where I am_. He shakes, hand tugging uselessly at the belts around him. The quinjet shuts, darkness closing in on him before the lights turn on – bright and white as the engines vibrate beneath his feet.

Ward. DJ remembers his body on the ground, of the way the red hole appeared in his head. _I’ve got blood on my face,_ he remembers, reaching up to wipe at his skin. His hand comes away sticky and red and he can feel every drop all of a sudden, knows every single one is blood that came from Ward’s _head and **what if it’s brain matter** -_

“Mr Stark,” a hand drops onto his shoulder, holding tightly. “What’s the matter? Are you claustrophobic?”

“He’s not claustrophobic,” a familiar voice replies and DJ thinks he’s imagining it. How could Daisy be here, after all? Daisy’s _dead_ , just like Ward – except worse, because Daisy’s body was mangled and unidentifiable except for DNA match. Ward just had a bullet put through his skull. The hand leaves his shoulder, two new ones – smaller, colder hands – pressing against his cheeks. His eyes lock with oh so familiar green ones, so strange and _dead, dead, dead-_

Daisy looks at him and shushes him gently, as if she can hear his thoughts. “Breathe, DJ. C’mon, buddy. It’s not hard. Copy me – you’re good at copying me, you always were. In and out, come on, DJ. In and out, _breathe_.”

DJ breathes. He locks all his attention in on Daisy, Daisy who is in front of him, alive and breathing. His panic fades, his terror takes a step back and anger settles in.

“You’re **dead** ,” he says, voice icy. “You are **dead** , Daisy Barton.”

“Not dead,” she replies quietly, hands leaving his face to take his singular hand – she would have taken that and his robotic hand, if he had it right now, he knows she would. Daisy was never scared of his prosthetic – never judging or nervous. Only ever fascinated and awed. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my idea.”

“You deceived us. You lied.”

“I faked my death because it wasn’t safe.”

“You should have stayed with me, in the mansion,” DJ says, “You would have been safe with me.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to go find my family,” Daisy replies sharply. “We would have been watched twenty-four seven and when you eventually got kidnapped, I would have been _killed_.”

DJ swallows because it’s true. She would have been a casualty – or worse, a _fatality_ – if she had been with him when he was kidnapped.

“I’m sorry,” she says and he immediately, _instantly_ forgives her.


End file.
